Jacen Solo: On the Right Path
by Onimiman
Summary: Thinking about what should have been after The New Jedi Order, I decided to write what would be a series of vignettes of post-NJO stories. The main thing here is what Jacen Solo should have been after The Unifying Force.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This fic, unlike my other stories, will not be a single narrative; it's what I hope will be a series of vignettes taking place after The New Jedi Order, of what I think should have happened instead of the overarching travesty that was Dark Nest to Fate of the Jedi.**

**Special thanks to Jedi Carpet for the name of Jacen's ship. I felt that it was incredibly appropriate for the character.  
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**Five years have passed since the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War. The galaxy is now at peace, and Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order has become stronger, not only in numbers, but also in its knowledge of the Force. The rigid ways of the Old Jedi Order have come to their end.**

**In the meantime, Jacen Solo, hero of the Galactic Alliance in the last war, has traveled between worlds inhabited by various Force sects. From these sects, Jacen has enlightened himself on the differing views of the Force in his search for once again achieving oneness with the Unifying Force.**

**But even amidst an age of peace and enlightenment, hidden threats and dangers continue to lurk in many corners of the galaxy, ready to spring up for the Jedi and their allies to fight against...**

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He knew that when he entered this state of being, he would never achieve it again. And yet, he would spend the rest of his life trying to do so.

That thought came back to haunt Jacen Solo as he watched himself become one with the Force to defeat Onimi, the true Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong. The feeling of knowing that he had achieved a state of being that could not be replicated until death came was what drove Jacen to what many would call a futile endeavor.

Jacen knew that with oneness with the Force came death. He had felt that happen in others in the war; Miko Reglia, Daeshara'cor, Ganner Rhysode, and, of course, his own bother, Anakin. Jacen would never forget when Anakin sacrificed his own life fighting off a horde of Yuuzhan Vong warriors to destroy those voxyn specimens for the good of the Jedi Order; no one could ever imagine that one did not need to die to achieve oneness with the Force, and Anakin's death was a prime example as to why that was.

And then there was Vergere, the very being who opened Jacen's eyes to the idea of the Unifying Force. She had given her own life on Ebaq 9 for Jacen, his sister Jaina, and all their comrades from an army of Vong, and she had left behind a legacy of opening up the rest of the Jedi Order's collective mindset; she made sure that the likes of Jacen's Uncle Luke Skywalker and the other Jedi Masters that there was more to the Force than simple light or dark sides. There was a rainbow in the Force that had a far range.

And nowhere else was that more apparent than here, on the homeworld of the xenophobic Aing-Tii. They taught, mostly to themselves, that the Force was not a black-and-white thing, but rather as the multitude of colors that it truly inhabited. The Force had a complexity and dimensionality that even the most skilled and educated in it could not hope to understand; which, again, was what drove Jacen to seek out that knowledge.

As it were, the Aing-Tii's more broadening view of the Force allowed them certain abilities that Jedi could rarely achieve, if ever. And one of those abilities was in being able to, in a sense, travel back in time, which was what Jacen did right now.

He watched as his past self aged five years from the sublime energy coursing from his body to blast Onimi away from him. After his parents, Han and Leia, and the late Nom Anor entered the bridge of the Supreme Overlord's escape vessel, the angelic glow around Jacen's past self faded to leave a much more matured young man in its wake; and Onimi's deformations were reversed only for him to die, melting away into a pool of foul hydrocarbons that the yorik coral of his vessel absorbed like a sponge.

Jacen ended the flow-walk there, leaving the forest of the Aing-Tii homeworld before him. His guide to this world, a male Aing-Tii by the name of Tadar'Ro, sat patiently as Jacen left his flow-walk.

Jacen took a deep breath and exhaled in what amounted to euphoria before he said, "Thank you for teaching me that, Tadar'Ro."

"I am glad that you are grateful for this experience, Jacen Solo," Tadar'Ro said through the voice of Jorj Car'das. The Aing-Tii guide wore a small vocal device around his neck that translated his language to Basic via the programmed vocals of Car'das, one of the few non-Aing-Tii that the species have welcomed in their past. "Because I feel that I must remind you that teaching you this technique, among others, is an incredible risk, not only in my society, but to the Force itself."

"I will be careful if I ever have to use it again," Jacen assured the alien. He understood that if one mastered the technique of flow-walking - the ability to travel back in time to observe certain events - one could theoretically and potentially alter time and the Force. Jacen knew that the knowledge that he obtained from the Aing-Tii - an ability that very few in the aliens' society even knew about anyway - was as dangerous as it was enlightening. And one must keep in mind that even if the Force were to correct itself in due time - to correct whatever alterations that a master of flow-walking would make - that irreparable damage can still be made on the fabric of reality itself.

"It is good to hear that," Tadar'Ro replied. "It will, at the very least, calm the major worries that my people will have over this matter. Sharing this precious knowledge with outsiders distresses many of my people greatly, Jacen Solo."

"I understand," Jacen stated. As enlightened as they were to the near-incomprehensible nature of the Force, the Aing-Tii were just as xenophobic of other species. Very few outsiders, such as Jacen, Jorj Car'das, and even Master Yoda of the Old Jedi Order, were ever welcomed to the homeworld of the Aing-Tii.

"And, again, thank you, Tadar'Ro," Jacen continued with a respectful nod. "For everything. I will take my leave now. Goodbye, and may the Force be with you." He prepared to turn away from the Aing-Tii guide.

"I have something to say before I say goodbye to you as well, Jacen Solo."

Jacen stopped and nodded. "Yes?"

"Your sojourn is an interesting one. You seek to understand what no one, not even your own uncle, can ever truly hope to understand. And I, too, understand why; you have explained in great detail to me about what you just saw, about your experience of achieving oneness with the Force. But, tell me, Jacen Solo, if you ever do achieve this state of oneness again, even if you believe that you will not achieve it again anyway, what do you think you will learn? And what do you think, or hope, to become?"

Jacen mulled over Tadar'Ro's question for a moment. "That's the thing. I don't really know; just as I never knew where the Force would take me after my education under Vergere. I can only ever hope that the Force will lead me down the right path."

"I hope the Force does the same for you, indeed, Jacen Solo," Tadar'Ro said. "As I do for everyone else in the galaxy, Aing-Tii and non-Aing-Tii alike. Good luck on the rest of your travels, Jacen Solo; goodbye, and may the Force be with you, as it always is, with all of us."

Jacen nodded again, turned, and then simply disappeared; he had used the Aing-Tii ability of teleporting other objects to other places onto himself, and he had agreed with Tadar'Ro that this would be the last time he would practice this technique on the Aing-Tii's homeworld. And he had done it to return to his ship, the _Solo Quest_, a modified YT-1300, which he began powering up to launch for other worlds.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Some of the dialogue, and most of the narrative prose, is taken directly from the Jacen section of the prologue to Troy Denning's Dark Nest I: The Joiner King. I felt like I had something to say to Akanah, as it were.**

_Help me, Jacen. Please. I need you. I need your help._ The voice sounded incredibly familiar to Jacen, and it was one that he felt that he had to answer and help.

He broke out of his meditation, his eyes flashing open, and he allowed himself to float down from his midair meditation to the ground of the meditation circle. He turned to the lead Fallanassi, who had then joined him from her own midair meditation.

"I'm sorry, Akanah," he said. "But I must go."

"If you are sorry, Jacen, then you must _not_ go," Akanah said. "Sorrow is a sign that you have not given yourself over to the White Current."

Jacen grimaced. "No. No, I haven't. Not yet, at least. But I am still sorry, and I still must go."

"What of your training?" Akanah asked.

"I'm grateful for what you have shown me so far. I'll continue when I return."

"No. I cannot permit that." As she said this, the meditation circle was enshrouded in a circular, vine-leaf wall.

Jacen ignored what he knew to be a Fallanassi illusion. "Why not?"

"Because your training is not yet complete," Akanah said. "You're not ready to leave."

"Like I said, I won't be gone forever," Jacen said. "I just need to answer this call through the Force and-"

"No." Akanah's tone was unwilling to brook anymore argument.

Jacen fell silent instantly.

Akanah raised her chin, still looking at Jacen. "Your feelings on this are unclear. Someone calls, and you go without knowing why."

"My feelings are clear enough," Jacen confidently. "Someone needs my help, and I can't in good conscience turn my back on someone who needs help, whether as a Jedi or just as a person in general."

"How are you sure that this person needs your help? For all you know, it could have come from your brother."

"No," Jacen answered. "Anakin died in the war. I told you that."

"Yes, but is it _him_?" Akanah asked. "After someone sinks beneath the Current, a circle of ripples remains behind. Perhaps it is the ripples that you sense."

"Maybe I am feeling ripples," Jacen said. "But I heard the voice; this person needs my help. And if I am feeling something that may have come from the past, then I need to assure myself that it is coming from the past. _Sometimes, the effect is all we can know of the cause_."

"Do you remember my words only so you can use them to spar with me?" Akanah asked indignantly. Her hand came up as if to bat him across the ear, and his own hand reflexively rose to block. Akanah shook her head in disgust. "You are a dreadful student, Jacen Solo. You hear, but you do not learn."

It was a rebuke to which Jacen had grown accustomed to in his five-year search for the true nature of the Force. The Jensaari, the Witches of Dathomir, even the Aing-Tii had all said similar things to him - usually when his questions about the Force grew too probing. But Akanah had more reason than the others to be disappointed in him. Striking another would be anathema for any Adept of the White Current. All Akanah had done was lift her hand; it had been Jacen who interpreted the action as an attack.

Jacen inclined his head in mild shame. "Perhaps I am a dreadful student," he admitted. "At least within the Fallanassi. But even if I am an awful learner, I'm willing to admit that my knowledge of the Force isn't all that it could be; and I can even admit when I fail to live up as a person, as well. I've certainly had my off moments."

"I'm glad to hear that coming from you," Akanah said, though her indignant tone and expression said otherwise. She was obviously willing to ignore the implication that Jacen just made about her and the rest of the Fallanassi. "Nevertheless, you must learn to still yourself, and see what is really in the Current."

Jacen closed his eyes and opened himself to the White Current in much the same way he would have opened himself to the Force. Akanah and the other Adepts taught that the Current and the Force were separate things, and that was true - but only in the sense that any current was different from the ocean in which it flowed. In their essential wholeness, they were each other.

Jacen performed a calming exercise that he had learned from the Theran Listeners, then focused on the call. It was still there, a cry so sharp that it hurt, and it was definitely a voice that he remembered but just couldn't place. But it was definitely not his brother Anakin, as Akanah had suggested.

"It's not Anakin, or his ripples," he relayed to Akanah after opening his eyes.

"You're certain?"

Jacen nodded. "Please ask the Pydyrians to bring my ship down from orbit. I'd like to leave as soon as possible."

"I am sorry, but no," Akanah said.

Jacen's eyebrows were raised. "If you are sorry, then you _must_ let me go. Sorrow is a sign that you have not given yourself over to the Current."

At that, every other Fallanassi in the air around them snapped out of her trance to look down upon Jacen and Akanah. The latter was now looking at the former in furious anger.

"How dare you," she growled as the other Fallanassi lowered themselves to glare at Jacen. After a moment, however, her tone and expression calmed and continued with: "You have the same power that I once sensed in your uncle, but without the light. You must not leave before you have found some."

The harsh assessment stung, but Jacen was hardly surprised. The war against the Yuuzhan Vong had brought the Jedi a deeper understanding of the Force - one that no longer saw light or dark as opposing sides - and he had known before he had come that the Fallanassi might find this view disturbing. But he did not shy away from expressing this through his Force-presence; he would not hide what he, and, by extension, the rest of the Order, had become.

"I'm sorry you disapprove," Jacen said with sincerity. "But I no longer view the Force in terms of light and dark. It embraces much more than that."

"Yes, we have heard about this 'new' knowledge of the Jedi," Akanah said in a scornful tone. "And it troubles me to see that their folly now rivals their arrogance."

"Folly? Arrogance? That 'folly and arrogance' were what helped us win the war."

"At what price, Jacen? If the Jedi no longer look to the light, how can they serve it?"

"The Jedi serve the Force," Jacen countered. "The only light and darkness that the Force encompasses are those of the individuals who harbor their own inner light and darkness. As Jedi, we must take the Force as the whole it is, and not just certain aspects of it, lest we fall like Yoda's Order."

"So now you are beyond light and dark?" Akanah asked. "Beyond good and evil?"

"_I'm_ not," Jacen said. "And neither is anyone else in the Jedi Order. The Force is beyond light and dark, the Force is beyond good and evil. I must keep my own inner light and dark balanced, because either by itself can lead to my destruction, and the destruction of those around me."

"How can inner light ever lead to destruction?" Akanah asked. "Only darkness can do that."

"When a star's light grows too bright and powerful," Jacen said, "it can eventually consume everything in its path, just as a black hole can."

"Your metaphor of a star does not have anything to do with lightness, Jacen Solo," Akanah said. "While the metaphor of the black hole does parallel that of the Jedi's previous idea of the dark side of the Force, your light side cannot bring destruction. Tell me how your light side of the Force, how good itself, can lead to death and chaos."

Jacen thought about it for a while.

"Well, Jacen? I'm waiting."

Then it clicked in his head. "Because sentience itself is not completely good or evil. It encompasses aspects of both in intertwining shades of grey. Too much evil can lead to misery and premature death, but too much good can render you too weak or vulnerable to do action against those who are evil."

"Too weak and vulnerable?" Akanah asked. "That does not sound like a star going nova, if you ask me. And we Fallanassi surround ourselves with peace and tranquility; yet we are able to defend ourselves, if need be, with our powerful illusions."

"That's just one aspect of too much good," Jacen said. "Too much good can lead to good intentions paving the road to evil. If one wants nothing but peace and tranquility throughout the galaxy, one would have to enforce that against the intentions of men and women who may not exactly want that. One could become a dictator in his or her pursuit to bring peace and tranquility throughout the galaxy. So there's your star metaphor."

Akanah sneered. "That isn't too much light encompassing the galaxy, Jacen. That's just a different form of darkness. If anything, the too-weak-and-vulnerable argument makes only a little more sense. I will agree, absolute pacifism can lead to horrid men and women without resistance in their conquest for rule. But there is never an instance where light can bring destruction."

Jacen's eyebrows were raised. "Actually, Akanah, you may have helped my argument."

Akanah looked surprised, along with the other Fallanassi with her. "What?" she asked.

"It's true, light in and of itself doesn't lead to death and destruction. But it can lead to darkness, which brings death and destruction. Just as a massive star can collapse in on itself and become a black hole, so, too, can someone's adherence to good; it can drive them to do bad things and become evil."

Akanah now looked at Jacen with disgust. "That has never been a problem for the Fallanassi."

"Because you've never branched out to the rest of the galaxy," Jacen pointed out. "You isolate yourselves from it, unlike the Jedi. You're never really confronted with any real challenges to your beliefs or your organization that would make you do things that you would never think you have to, such as killing in self-defense.

"The Jedi have to do that practically on a daily basis, and no Jedi worth his or her salt would ever truly enjoy doing something like that even to the most vile person who ever lived; at least no Jedi _should_ enjoy that, anyway. You Fallanassi, on the other hand, have never had to live with that kind of burden because you close yourself off from anything and everything that is dangerous to your ideals. The closest thing you've ever done for going beyond your principles was resolving the Black Fleet Crisis with your illusions, and even then, you haven't actually killed anyone then.

"Do you know how many times I've had to kill, Akanah? You think I enjoyed what I have done? No. Even when I reveled in the pain and misery that I caused while I was under Vergere's teachings, I had suffered, and it was that pain that showed me that not everything can live up to an ideal. At least not all the time, and I can tell you, being the horrible student that I am to your order, that if the Fallanassi were challenged, they would more than likely fail to live up to the ideals placed before them, because they had never had their principles tested.

"I have; the Jedi Order have. And we have never always passed; often, we had failed miserably. But we rose up so we can succeed, resolve the conflict within us, or at the very least accept it, so we can mold the more flexible ideals that, while still breakable, are ones that we worry less about leading to our downfall. And that's really all that we... all that I... can really hope for.

"So tell me this, Akanah: Where is the folly and arrogance in understanding your limits, but learning to accept them for your own personal growth?"

Akanah was left completely speechless; she only stared back at Jacen in an open-mouthed trance, which wasn't brought about by some submission to the White Current.

"The Jedi serve only themselves!" one of the Fallanassi behind Akanah exclaimed. "They are pompous enough to believe they can use the Force instead of submitting to it!"

"And in this pride," one of the other Fallanassi continued, "they have caused more suffering than they have prevented. Look at the Yuuzhan Vong War! You allowed the invaders to conquer and pillage throughout the galaxy, leaving untold trillions of galactic citizens dead in your misguided beliefs!"

"The count was three hundred sixty-five trillion," Jacen said with regret in his tone. "Roughly speaking, of course. But that was before we submitted to the Unifying Force. And we defeated the Yuuzhan Vong by doing exactly that; submitting ourselves to the Force. That was certainly what I did when I defeated Onimi."

Recovering from Jacen's speech, Akanah shook her head. "With no light to guide you, Jacen, and the power that I sense in you, I fear that you will only bring about death and destruction in your future."

Jacen stared back at Akanah in bewilderment. "No light?"

Akanah nodded. "You said yourself that the Force is unguided by light or darkness."

"But to you, you only sense darkness in me." It wasn't a question.

Akanah's silent nod said it all.

Jacen looked away in shame before looking back at her. "No light at all?"

"Only a little," Akanah said. "But it cannot stand up to the darkness, the arrogance, that I sense in you."

Jacen backed away, his gaze not leaving Akanah's. Doubt, stronger than before in all his travels after the war, began to invade his thoughts in a way that the Yuuzhan Vong could only rival with their conquest of the galaxy. Akanah truly feared for him, Jacen realized; truly feared that he would become as great a monster as his grandfather, Darth Vader, if not worse.

"I sense light in you, Jacen," one of the Fallanasi said.

Everyone looked to the one who spoke.

"I sense more light than darkness in you," the Fallanassi said. She was a red-skinned human female who barely reached up to Jacen's shoulders at her full height.

"Your senses clearly need to be retrained, Adept," Akanah said before whirling back to face Jacen.

"Then so do mine," another Adept said. This one was a dark-skinned individual who was slightly taller than Jacen. "Because I sense more light than darkness in him."

"So do I."

"And I, too."

Soon, half the Fallanassi in the circle agreed that there was more light than darkness in Jacen; the other half, including Akanah and the two Adepts who had aided Akanah in her argument, remained steadfast in their belief that Jacen was on a path of darkness.

And the doubt in Jacen's mind receded.

"Well, Akanah," Jacen said, "whether or not those who doubt your senses about me are wrong, one thing now remains certain: The Fallanassi are not perfect." His tone was only that of a humble traveler letting someone know what dissent in her order could possibly mean.

For a moment, Akanah's nostrils flared. But she just as quickly regained her composure before taking out her commlink and activating it.

"Chief Najee?" Akanah spoke in the comm.

"Yes, Mistress Akanah?" the voice at the other end asked.

"Bring Jedi Solo's ship down from orbit at the sight of the landing pad in the jungle."

"Yes, Mistress Akanah."

Akanah then signed off on her comm and replaced it in her belt. The vine-leaf wall all but disappeared around Jacen and all the other Fallanassi, and Jacen looked over all of them to find a platform out in the distance of the jungle; an illusion just to guide the slaved _Solo Quest_ down to its destination.

"Leave now," Akanah demanded.

Jacen only nodded before leaving the meditation circle and heading off to the false platform in the distance.


	3. Chapter 3

The _Solo Quest_ dropped out of hyperspace in the system where Jacen felt that this Force-call was coming from. Ahead was a dusty grey world that looked completely and utterly dead.

_This has to be a mistake_, Jacen thought. _There can't be anything here. Not even a world like Tatooine is this barren_. But then he reached out with his Force-senses to find if there was any life down there and...

_Please help me, Jacen_, that voice said in his head. And it definitely came from the planet up ahead.

Without a second thought, Jacen rocketed the _Quest_ over to the planet ahead. Minutes later, he set his ship down upon an empty desert landscape that somehow made Uncle Luke's homeworld seem alive and flowing with life in comparison; and that didn't include places like Mos Eisley, either.

After Jacen disembarked from the _Quest_ and locked it up, he found that the only standout feature amidst this arid desert world was a small mountain up ahead with a cave.

_Here_, Jacen heard with his senses. He then walked to the cave and entered.

For several minutes, he found nothing but darkness in his way, with only his lightsaber and Force-senses showing him where he was going.

"Please, help me."

Now that voice was no longer in Jacen's head, or his senses. He could hear it in the real world, in this cave, and it was only further down ahead; however, it sounded... rusty, which was the best word that Jacen could think of.

After a few more twists, turns, and bends in the cave, Jacen saw a fire in the distance. He deactivated his lightsaber, hooked it back to his belt, and approached the area around the fire - which was a campfire - which was surrounded by a group of insects of various sizes.

Jacen stopped in his tracks from fear and shock at the sight of the insects, who stared back at him expectantly. But once he probed their presences through the Force, he began to gain a deeper understanding of them.

They were all part of a hive mind known as Unu. And they were waiting for Jacen for quite some time now.

"Why did you want to see me?" he asked the collective bugs.

And it was then that a human figure appeared from the other side of the campfire, having risen from behind the flames that shielded his presence from the human eye; and being a human figure was an accurate description for the being that Jacen now saw.

The man on the other side, who was now rounding the campfire, had such pale white skin that Jacen could have sworn that he might have been a burn victim; that the wounds that he had suffered from were years old now, leaving a small lump on his face that was once a nose and a lipless mouth. His eyes were a startling green, and he wore an all-black suit with a crimson red cape.

"Hello, Jacen," the being said. His voice was hoarse, coarse, and gravelly; his vocal cords must have been burned, too, by whatever incident that deformed the rest of his body. "As you can sense from us, we have been waiting for you."

Jacen's eyebrows were lowered in confusion as well as a mild sense of fear. "Um... who are you?"

The being's face stretched into a gross replication of a human smile. "Of course you do not recognize us. We have been burned by the Crash. Allow us to reintroduce you to what we once were; we are now UnuThul, but you had known us as... Raynar Thul."

"Raynar!" Jacen exclaimed in shock.

"Yes," Raynar - or, rather, UnuThul - said. "You remember what had happened to us?"

Jacen nodded, leaving aside his confusion by what UnuThul meant by "us." "Eight years ago. The Mission to Myrkr. You were taken by the Dark Jedi Lomi Plo and Welk. We never found you after the war with the Yuuzhan Vong ended."

"Ah, yes, the Yuuzhan Vong," UnuThul said. "Tell us, did you succeed in destroying the voxyn, Jacen?"

"We did," Jacen said. "But we lost the Hara sisters and... Anakin, along the way."

"We are sorry to hear this," UnuThul said. "We presume that the New Republic triumphed against the Yuuzhan Vong?"

"The New Republic didn't," Jacen said. "But the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances did. The government reformed under Chief of State Cal Omas after Borsk Fey'lya died when the Yuuzhan Vong took Coruscant. The Galactic Alliance retook it and sent the invaders out into the Unknown Regions."

"The Vong simply gave up?" UnuThul asked.

"Not 'simply,' but yes," Jacen said.

"But that wasn't all that happened, was it?" UnuThul asked. "What about the transformation in you, Jacen?"

Jacen sighed. He should have figured that Raynar - or whatever he was calling himself now - would sense that change of presence in him, just as Akanah had. He only hoped that UnuThul wouldn't be so judgmental.

"I have changed," Jacen said. "And so has the rest of the Jedi Order. Neither of us look upon the Force as light or dark any longer. It's how we won the war."

"And this new view of the Force," UnuThul said. "Has it given the Order any new powers?"

Jacen shook his head. "No."

"Then how come we saw you after the Crash?" UnuThul asked.

"Saw me after the Cr- What are you talking about?"

"When the ship carrying Raynar Thul arrived," UnuThul elaborated, "and crashed, we saw you, Jacen. We saw you standing out in the distance, but you didn't help us. Yet, we also sensed that you weren't there, that you were unable to help us."

Now Jacen was really confused. "I don't understand what you're talking about. Um... when did this ship crash?"

"Eight years ago," UnuThul said. "Not long after the ship escaped from Myrkr."

Jacen's expression fell into one of absolute confusion. "But I couldn't have been here. I was... being transformed." He wasn't sure how much he wanted to reveal about his teachings under Vergere to UnuThul.

"Then it makes sense that you were not here," UnuThul said. "Come; we will take you to the Crash. Perhaps, then, it will make sense for you." UnuThul then walked past Jacen as the rest of Unu surrounded the men, leading the way out of the cave to the outside again.

Once they were all out, they rounded the mountain, and there, they reached a mound that, on his flyover, Jacen initially mistook for a boulder. But upon inspection, he found that it was a ship caked in sand, no doubt from sandstorms or something like that, and Jacen could just barely make out the words _Tachyon Flier_ somewhere on the hull.

The _Tachyon Flier_. Yes, this was the ship, Jacen remembered. This was the ship that Lomi Plo and Welk used to take Raynar, along with Lowbacca's translator droid M-TD, back aboard the _Baanu Rass_ so many years ago.

"We have not yet reached our destination, Jacen," UnuThul said. He and his entourage of insects had stopped to face Jacen so that UnuThul could point at another nearby mound in the distance. "That is where we saw you. If you go there, you will understand."

"Can I at least look through this ship first?" Jacen asked.

"No," UnuThul said with an abrupt tone that took Jacen slightly aback. "This site is sacred to us. No one is to enter or touch this vessel. And besides, there is nothing inside for you to find anyway."

"Why is this site so sacred to you?" Jacen inquired.

"Because this is where Raynar Thul died," UnuThul answered.

Jacen hesitated before asking his next question. "What happened to the other occupants of the ship? The Dark Jedi, Lomi Plo and Welk, and the droid M-TD?"

"They all perished," UnuThul answered.

"Like Raynar?"

When UnuThul said nothing, Jacen started to really worry.

"Come," UnuThul repeated. "There is nothing for you here. Only there." Again, he pointed at the distant mound.

Jacen hesitated again, but he eventually turned and followed all of Unu to the mound.

Minutes later, he and Unu reached the mound, and Jacen stood dead center of it, looking out upon the Crash.

"I don't understand," Jacen said after a while. "What am I supposed to learn from here?"

"You were here, yet you weren't here. How could that be?" UnuThul sounded almost as confused as Jacen; and the insects even rumbled confused murmurings themselves.

Jacen thought about it for a short while before a startling realization clicked in his head.

The only way he could be here, yet not be here at the time of the Crash, was from what he learned from the Aing-Tii.

Flow-walking.

But how could that be? he wondered. Raynar and these insects could have possibly seen him if he did flow-walk here. Flow-walking was only looking back into the past, not interacting with it.

Or so Jacen had been told.

Was it possible that Jacen could, in fact, travel back in time? Was he fated to come here, to flow-walk back in time for Raynar to see him, so that UnuThul could call for him?

"I think I know how this is possible," Jacen said. "If you will please remain silent."

And then he fell into a flow-walking trance.

He traveled all the way back in time to the point where he knew that the Crash would happen. He looked into the sky, and he saw the _Tachyon Flier_ approach the ground in a rapid descent, the ship itself practically on fire from a bad entry through the atmosphere.

Even though he knew the ship's fate, Jacen was still surprised to find that the _Flier_ didn't outright explode once it impacted with the sandy ground; yet it nevertheless burned.

A short while later, three figures emerged, one carrying the other two out. All of them were horribly burned, and the ones who were dragged out were both unconscious, if not dead.

Even from this distance, Jacen could tell that the figure who carried the other two out was Raynar, and the unconscious ones were Lomi Plo and Welk.

After the wounded Raynar sagged to his knees and let the unconscious forms of Plo and Welk drop against the ground, he looked over to Jacen's direction... and they locked eyes.

"Jacen!" Raynar cried. "Help me!"

"Help me, Jacen!" UnuThul cried, breaking Jacen out of his flow-walking trance, and back into the present world.

The burned man grasped at Jacen's shoulders, turning him around from facing the Crash site as he practically shook Jacen.

"You've got to help me!" UnuThul - no, _Raynar_, Jacen realized - pleaded. "My mind! They've taken over my mind, and I can't leave them!"

Jacen finally got a grip on Raynar's own shoulders and stilled him. "Raynar, calm down. I can help you. If you just come with me."

"He cannot come with you, Jacen," a female voice said from behind Jacen.

Jacen was then tackled from behind by someone he couldn't see, and he fell upon Raynar as the weight of other beings - most likely the insects around them - started to prevent Jacen from escaping.

"Because you will be with one of us," the female voice said, breathing into Jacen's ear. "And with all the power that you have acquired in your time, you will help us take over this galaxy! To expand from this desolate wasteland, and succeed where the Yuuzhan Vong failed in their conquest; the complete subjugation of all under the rule of the Killiks!"

Jacen recognized that voice; it belonged to Lomi Plo, he remembered. And he couldn't help but remember that Killiks were an ancient insectoid race thought to have been long extinct by now.

That last point, however, wasn't important at the moment. What was important was the fact that he couldn't be taken by Plo and these bugs.

"If you want me for my power, Plo," Jacen muttered, his breath strained by the weight crushing him in, "you shouldn't have just tackled me."

With all of the inner strength he could muster, he sent a giant Force-wave that sent every single being flying off of him in all directions. He then pushed himself off of Raynar and turned to face Lomi Plo, who had fallen next to her Dark Jedi compatriot, Welk, among a group of the insectoids.

Unhooking and activating his green-bladed lightsaber from his belt again, Jacen leaped in to swipe Plo and Welk dead in one fell swoop. But the two Dark Jedi pushed themselves off and rolled away, leaving Jacen to slash at nothing but the sand beneath him as Plo and Welk jumped to their feet on either side of Jacen to activate their red-bladed lightsabers.

The Dark Jedi then rushed in to Jacen - Plo from the left, Welk from the right - and then Jacen flipped back once so that the dark siders were both fully in his view. He began to trade blows with each of them, expertly dueling them off, even as they started to back him up under their own onslaught of slashes.

As the two-on-one duel progressed, the Killiks around them started to rush in to aid Plo and Welk, Jacen sensed. So he had to divert his attention away from the Dark Jedi as he began to cut down the insectoids around him, sometimes managing to outright jump and/or flip away from both Plo and Welk to handle the bugs.

Eventually, however, four Killiks managed to get past Jacen's defenses to tackle him by the legs down onto his back. Four more bugs held his arms down to prevent him from using his lightsaber, and one of them tried to wrestle the weapon out of Jacen's hand as Plo and Welk advanced upon him.

But then Jacen unleashed a volley of Electric Judgment from his free hand, electrocuting the Killiks who were holding him down to death, leaving their lifeless corpses crispy as he rolled back to duel Plo and Welk again. More Killiks tried to attack Jacen again, but he managed to cut them down with as much difficulty as he had before, though none of them managed to succeed in holding him down like those eight other bugs.

However, the duel soon ended when Jacen felt a hot, sharp blade pierce his right thigh from behind. He fell to his hands and knees, his lightsaber deactivated and clattering away, and he managed to look back to find Raynar standing there with his own lightsaber's blade - which Jacen noted was red, most likely because Plo and Welk wanted Raynar to be a Dark Jedi like them (and they could have given him a spare red lightsaber crystal to boot) - being the one that gave Jacen pain that he didn't expect to endure.

_If only Vergere's teachings made me immune to _all _pain_, Jacen thought.

"We can sense now that you will not be so willing to join the Killik hive mind, Jacen," Plo said as she and Welk approached him again.

"Not like Raynar here, even with all of his resistance," Welk said.

"As you can see," Plo said, "he is, in the end, loyal and compliant to _us_."

"But since you are too dangerous alive," Welk said, "we will have no choice but to... well, you know." He gave a smirk that was more awkward than menacing, given his burns.

"Such a shame," Plo commented. "Such power, such promise, all wasted."

She and Welk then raised their lightsabers to simultaneously strike Jacen down.

"No!" Raynar cried.

He abruptly pulled his blade out of Jacen's leg to stop Plo and Welk's blades from killing Jacen. The latter then took the opportunity to reach out with the Force to call his own lightsaber back into his hands, reactivating it even as Welk sent a Force-wave that threw Raynar away.

"You ungrateful, treacherous little-"

Welk's rant to Raynar was cut off when Jacen plunged his blade through his chest.

Plo gasped, and then struck out to decapitate Jacen. But he ducked beneath the swing, pulled the blade out of Welk's body, and rolled out of the way before gracefully pushing himself back to his feet with one hand; the lightsaber wound in his leg was all but forgotten, with his training from Vergere allowing him to forget about it (at least for the moment).

As Welk collapsed to the sandy ground dead, Plo rushed past to attack Jacen with renewed rigor and fury; not even the Killiks wanted to get involved in taking down Jacen, probably because they didn't want to get in the way of Plo's rage. The viciousness of her attacks, however, led to Jacen slipping in concentration, for the pain in his leg caused him to stumble back and fall for the ground.

But in the second that it would have taken for Plo to strike the vulnerable Jacen dead, a red lightsaber blade was plunged through Plo's chest from behind. The lightsaber in her raised hands was deactivated to clatter to the ground, and her body slumped dead as the red blade that killed her was deactivated.

Standing in her place was Raynar, who looked down upon Jacen with worry. He then looked out to the Killiks.

"You're all free now," he said to them. "Go home."

Without any clicking or clacking protests, the Killiks simply turned away and scurried away, many of them burrowing into the sandy ground for whatever they could find or had previously established.

Raynar, after hooking the red-bladed lightsaber to his belt, then reached down and picked Jacen up, helping him to his feet by letting Jacen place an arm around his shoulder.

"Thank you for helping me," Raynar said as they started to slowly proceed to the _Solo Quest_. "You have a bacta tube aboard?"

"Yeah, but a patch should be able to heal this right up," Jacen said. "But you look and sound like you need a year's worth of immersion in that tube."

"You look good, too," Raynar remarked sardonically.

"So what took you and those two-" Jacen nodded back to the corpses of Plo and Welk "-so long to call to me?"

"They sensed you weren't powerful enough to make you join the hive mind yet," Raynar explained. "Once you were, they let me call you."

"I'm sorry they did this to you, my friend," Jacen said.

"There are no need for apologies, Jacen," Raynar said. "You saved my life, and helped me vanquish another threat to the galaxy, as well as breaking me out of that bug hive mind. Man, you have no idea how weird that was, never mind having two Dark Jedi control your mind."

"If you think that's weird, try being one with the Force to the point where you actually were the Force for a moment," Jacen said.

"Shut up," Raynar said playfully. "Is that what happened to you?"

"It's how I ended the war with the Yuuzhan Vong," Jacen said. "How I killed their Supreme Overlord, who actually had the Force himself, by the way."

"Really?" Raynar asked in disbelief. "How could that be? I thought all Vong didn't have the Force."

"It's a long story, I'll tell you on the hyperspace flight outta here," Jacen said. "You know, speaking of hyperspace flight, have you heard about a living planet that could do that?"

"Sounds like you had a strange time after Myrkr, Jacen," Raynar remarked.

"Oh, you have no idea, my friend," Jacen said.


	4. Chapter 4

The _Solo Quest_ dropped out of hyperspace to appear over the world of Denon, a planetary metropolis that appeared almost exactly as Coruscant had.

"This isn't Coruscant," Raynar said. He was seated in the copilot seat, looking out through the viewport. "It looks a little different than I remember." He then looked at the console. "These aren't even the right coordinates; I know that Coruscant's called Triple Zero for a reason."

"That's right. Remember when I told you that the Yuuzhan Vong invaded Coruscant?" Jacen asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, even though the Galactic Alliance reclaimed it," Jacen said, "they kinda can't occupy it for at least another three decades. The rebuilding of that planet will take some time and Yuuzhan Vong Shapers who weren't ferried away by Zonama Sekot are there to help in making sure that everything that's theirs is no longer there."

"So the GA decided to place its capital on Denon?" Raynar asked.

"Bingo," Jacen confirmed.

From there, after the _Quest_ went through Denon's standard security checks, it was through the atmosphere and heading down for a public landing bay. Jacen paid the landing fee, and then he and Raynar took an aircab over to a private clinic located a few miles away.

"You know, I gotta ask," Raynar said as he and Jacen rode in the backseat of the cab, "now that the Jedi Order isn't exactly the institution it was, how are you still getting money? I mean, did you get a job, Jacen?"

"Uncle Luke is still on good terms with Chief of State Omas," Jacen said. "They established a Masters' Council so that they can direct and guide the Jedi who are doing missions. So long as the Order continues to serve the galaxy in a small way, Omas gives funding even to what would be called 'non-active Jedi,' according to GA policy."

"'Non-active Jedi,' like you?" Raynar asked.

"Basically."

"So you got to have a free ride traveling around the galaxy learning different Force-powers," Raynar said with a strained smirk. "Lucky you."

"Well, I help when and where I'm needed," Jacen said. "I saved you from Plo and Welk, right?"

"Only 'cause I called, but yeah," Raynar acknowledged. "So I guess Jaina's one of these active Jedi?"

"I haven't been in touch with her since the end of the war, but knowing her, I think she still would be," Jacen said. "That was certainly her choice after the war ended."

"Why haven't you been speaking to each other?" Raynar asked. "Did something bad happen? I mean, besides the war and... Anakin."

"Nothing really happened after the war, we just grew apart, taking different paths," Jacen said. "We still feel each other through our twin bond, and we give the little Force-nudges here and there between ourselves. I guess we just never found the time to really reconnect."

"You know, I'm sorry if I'm prying, especially after you saved me," Raynar said, "but did you keep up with the rest of your family after you went on your sojourn, Jacen?"

"In all honesty, not really," Jacen said. "I just kept to myself, and the rest of the family did their own thing, to the best of my knowledge. But don't worry, you're not prying; you saved me from Plo, so I guess it kinda goes both ways now."

"Okay," Raynar said.

"You know, actually, I think it may be a good idea to reconnect with my family, just for old time's sake," Jacen said. "I definitely would like to see Uncle Luke about that flow-walking thing, where you saw me back in the past."

"You wouldn't mind updating me on that, see what you figured out?" Raynar asked. "I mean, it seems pretty weird that I saw you when all flow-walking is is just _seeing_ what's in the past."

"Don't worry, I'll let you know," Jacen said. "Ah, here we are."

By then, the aircab stopped outside the clinic that they were heading to. Jacen paid the driver, who didn't hear any of their conversation because of the soundproofing between the front and backseats (which could only be turned down from either end), and they walked out right before the aircab zoomed away.

Moments later, they were inside the clinic and they walked past the seated patients - some of whom gave Raynar some concerned and even horrified glances at his deformed visage - to meet with the blue-skinned male Twi'lek receptionist. He gave Raynar a startled look.

"Yeah, that's kind of why we're here," Jacen said to the receptionist. Raynar offered an annoyed glance. "We'd like to see Doctor Cilghal, please."

"Please have a seat, and I'll her know," the receptionist said as he spoke in a calm, professional tone; his surprise of Raynar's appearance was gone. "What are your names, by the way?"

"I'm Jacen Solo, and this is Raynar Thul," Jacen said. Raynar nodded at the receptionist, in spite of his earlier reaction.

"Jacen Solo?" the receptionist asked. "The son of Han and Leia Solo?"

"Sure am," Jacen said neutrally.

"I'll let Doctor Cilghal know right away," the receptionist said before he stood up and practically rushed away.

Once Jacen and Raynar were seated, the latter asked the former in hushed whispers, so as to not attract any attention from the other waiting patients, "So you're not known as the hero of the Yuuzhan Vong War? You're still only known as Han Solo and Princess Leia's son?"

"Me killing Onimi is only something that my family and closest friends know about," Jacen said. "As far as the galaxy's concerned, the war ended when Uncle Luke killed Shimrra Jamaane."

"And you're just okay with the fact that the galaxy doesn't know that you're the one who stopped the war?" Raynar asked.

Jacen shrugged. "I'm fine with it. I don't really care about that, anyway; I just want to expand my knowledge of the Force. Besides, there are rumors that I ended the war when I killed a second power to the Yuuzhan Vong throne, but neither anyone in my family or myself decided to confirm these rumors, because, really, what would that gain anyone? Maybe a little something in the historical archives, but really, what else? I mean, we let Tionne Solusar know about this, but that's really all about it.

"And in any case, I don't think it's a good idea to let the Yuuzhan Vong know that they were really run by a Shamed One the whole time; I can imagine they're having a hard time adjusting with their new lifestyle on Zonama Sekot as it is, especially the ones who were on top of the food chain."

"I also imagine it would hurt the Shamed Ones' morale if they learned that one of their own led their species and continued to let them wallow in their destitution?" Raynar asked.

"That's also another good reason we didn't reveal that to the galaxy," Jacen said.

"So Cilghal decided to become an M.D.?" Raynar asked.

"Hey, it makes sense to her," Jacen replied in the same hushed whisper. "Just as traveling the galaxy did for me. Uncle Luke did say that we should utilize our skills and abilities to how we saw fit, so Cilghal took up being a medical practitioner."

"She didn't become a Jedi Master?" Raynar asked. "I'd think she'd be on the Masters' Council by now."

"It wasn't for her," Jacen said. "She wasn't interested in the internal matters of the Order so much. She wanted to help people, so she did."

"You know, now that I think about it," Raynar said, "you haven't been keeping up with your family; how do you know about the other Jedi like Cilghal?"

"I keep up with some of the news in the Order," Jacen said. "I hear things, you know."

By then, the Twi'lek receptionist reappeared at his station and said, "Doctor Cilghal is ready to see you and Jedi Thul, Jedi Solo."

Jacen and Raynar stood up and walked past the other patients, who all looked a little peeved that they got to go earlier than the rest of them.

The receptionist guided the Jedi along to Cilghal's office. She looked up at them and flinched at the site of Raynar's face.

"Oh, Jacen!" Cilghal said. "Your startled me. Who's your friend here?"

"Cilghal, you remember Raynar Thul?" Jacen asked.

"Raynar?" Cilghal asked, now bringing her full attention on the burned Knight. "I thought you died at Myrkr like everyone else thought."

"I look dead, don't I?" Raynar remarked.

"You look like you need some intense physical therapy," Cilghal said. "Please, have a seat and tell me everything. Uh, Jacen, did you need to see me for something?"

"No, it's just for Raynar," Jacen said. "You can take him from here, Doctor?"

"Sure," Cilghal said.

Raynar turned to Jacen. "Again, thanks for saving me."

"Anytime," Jacen said before shaking his friend's hand. They then turned away from each other, with Jacen leaving and Raynar taking his seat to tell Cilghal about what happened to him after Myrkr and what she could do to help him.


	5. Chapter 5

Instead of the immense, impressive Temple that the Jedi of the Old Republic once resided in, Denon's Jedi Temple wasn't so much of a temple as it was a small three-storey mansion that would, at most, harbor about three dozen Jedi at anytime. It was at the insistence of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and his Council of appointed Masters to the Galactic Alliance administration of Cal Omas that the Temple of the New Jedi Order would remain relatively small and humble instead of the great structure that Yoda's Order was used to.

Not only did it not need government funding than a more impressive Temple would require since the previous owner, a Jedi sympathizer who died of old age, had given his home to the Jedi in his will, but the mansion also reflected the more humble, self-seeking values of the New Jedi Order.

Looking out upon it from outside the fenced-off grounds of the Jedi Temple, Jacen appreciated that his uncle and his fellow Masters were taking the Unifying Force philosophy seriously; oh, sure, a mansion was nothing to sneeze at, but compared to a magnificent Temple like the one that he visited under Vergere's tutelage, it was definitely a sign that the Order was taking on a new, more enlightened view of both themselves and the Force.

Jacen was about to press the button that would open up the gate and let him inside when the gate simply opened for him. His resultant confusion was soon relieved once he felt his Uncle Luke's familiar presence through the Force give off the sentiment of, _Welcome back, Jacen_.

He then walked into the Temple grounds, and after the gate closed behind him, he was soon met by a landspeeder piloted by a dark-haired, fair-skinned human female who looked like she was barely out of her teens. She smiled at him as she asked, "Jacen Solo, is it?"

Jacen reciprocated the smile with a nod. "I am."

She waved him over. "Come on in, I'll save you the trip."

Jacen vaulted to the passenger side of the speeder and clicked on his safety harness before the pilot cruised over to the Jedi Temple several yards away.

"I heard a lot about you, Jacen. Or do you prefer to be called Jedi Solo?" the woman asked, glancing back and forth between the Temple and Jacen.

"Jacen will do," he replied in a friendly tone. "And you are?"

"Jedi apprentice Nelani Dinn," the pilot answered. "I heard that you were responsible for introducing the idea of the Unifying Force to the Order."

"Well, it was Vergere who introduced it to me in the first place, in a weird sort of way, through her tutelage on Coruscant," Jacen said. "So all the credit should go to her."

"Wasn't she with the Yuuzhan Vong at the time?" Nelani asked.

"She was, but only to save them," Jacen explained. "She didn't want them wiped out by their own barbaric culture, or by the powers of the galaxy itself. So she lived with them from the time she left this galaxy until she set me free from their captivity."

"So that they could be saved by Zonama Sekot," Nelani concluded.

"Precisely," Jacen said.

Nelani fell silent, as if she were holding back a disagreement. "You know, I gotta ask, why aren't you letting the rest of the galaxy know that you were the one who ended the war?" Nelani inquired.

"What?" Jacen asked.

"I heard about the rumors about a second power behind the Supreme Overlord's throne," Nelani clarified. "I asked Master Skywalker about it, and he told me that it was because it wasn't necessary to tell the rest of the galaxy about this Onimi's death being what convinced the Vong to surrender. Why didn't you tell the galaxy about this after you left the Order, Jacen?"

"I never left the Order," Jacen said. "I did what I thought was best for myself as a Jedi."

"Well, it seemed like you left the Order," Nelani said. "No other Jedi did what you did; not even Jedi Cilghal. She's still helping people."

Jacen grimaced. It figured that someone would think that he was selfish for going off on a self-discovering sojourn after the war had concluded, just as Raynar had pointed out. Alas, however, Jacen did what he thought was right for himself, and it hurt no one else, even if it didn't help anyone else (not counting Raynar himself, of course).

"Here we are," Nelani said as she docked the speeder in the lot outside the Temple. She shut off the engines, unbuckled her harness, and got out of the vehicle just as Jacen did.

He then followed her inside, where she led him down the Temple's hallways to Luke Skywalker's office.

"Well, I have to get back out, in case we get anymore guests," Nelani stated to Jacen outside the office. Her tone was a little clipped and stoic; almost completely opposite to the smiling face that greeted Jacen out on the grounds.

"Go do what you have to, then," Jacen said awkwardly before she turned and left.

He then turned back and opened the door to Uncle Luke's office, who looked up from his datapad and smiled at his nephew.

"Jacen," Luke said with his soft smile. For a moment, Jacen wondered if, like his interaction with Nelani, it would start out like this, but then devolve into something a bit more hostile later. It would be little wonder if Luke was starting to lose faith in the Unifying Force; he did tell Jacen, prior to the end of the war, that he still believed that the dark side of the Force existed, even if it contradicted with the Potentium.

"I'm so glad you've finally returned," Luke continued. "I already let your parents and Jaina know that you're here."

"Where are they?" Jacen asked.

"Off on errands through the rest of the galaxy," Luke answered. "Would you like to have a seat?" He waved to one of the two guest chairs on the opposite side of his desk.

Jacen nodded wordlessly before approaching the chair and sitting down. "Are they still cleaning up the mess that the war left behind?"

"Your parents are," Luke said. "They just helped the Ithorians find a new home in a nebula that they discovered a while back. You may find this interesting, since the planets in the nebula had been terraformed to the point where no fauna would have been allowed to thrive, only flora."

Jacen's eyebrows were raised in curiosity. "So I presume the terraforming effects were reversed to allow fauna to thrive there with the flora?"

Luke nodded. "The Galactic Alliance scientists pulled through. The ecosystems have been balanced to allow flora and fauna alike to exist on these planets; just as we Jedi continue to balance the light and darkness within ourselves."

At first, Jacen thought that maybe he wouldn't have any philosophical arguments with his uncle when he said that; but now that he thought about it... "Are you saying there's something wrong with fauna being there in the first place, balancing out with the flora?"

Luke shook his head. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Of course, you do have to keep in mind, Jacen, that without flora, there would be no fauna."

"There can't be darkness without light to offset it," Jacen agreed.

"Interesting, though, that flora was able to exist without the likes of bees or other insects to pollinate," Luke pointed out.

"Some flowers can do that just through releasing their spores in the air," Jacen said in a reluctant way. His argument with Akanah was coming back to him, it seemed; why did darkness need to be balanced out with light, when it seemed, to many people, that there was no need for a balancing darkness? "But then, not all plant-life can do that, can it?"

"Not all, no," Luke agreed.

Jacen sighed. "I suppose you still have your doubts about the Unifying Force, Uncle Luke?"

"I always had my doubts about it, Jacen," Luke said. "Granted, I don't think it's completely wrong. So far, there haven't been any Jedi who have become so conflicted about this balancing act that they were unable to keep from going into too much light or too much dark."

Jacen couldn't help but notice how his uncle called it a balancing "act," as if the Unifying Force was nothing more than a facade. But maybe Jacen was reading too much into it; or maybe not, given how he had called his uncle's doubts so well in his mind.

And then there was the, "So far..."

"Darkness always has its place in the Force and within us, just as fauna and other sentient beings have their place in the galaxy," Jacen said.

"I suppose," Luke said. "And while I don't argue against the propagation of beings that aren't flowers, you'll understand if I, by experience, am still unsure about why we should continue to acknowledge darkness as something we must live by."

Jacen looked at his uncle even more curiously now. "We always do that; it's something the Jedi wrestled with even with the ideology of the light and dark sides."

"True," Luke said. "But to temper light with darkness deliberately instead of always doing that with light over darkness, Jacen?"

"Too much light, and it can burn," Jacen said. "Or worse yet, as I told Akanah on Pydyr, it can become darkness itself."

"You talked to Akanah?" Luke asked.

Jacen nodded. "She was one of your old girlfriends before you settled with Aunt Mara, right?"

Luke grinned. "Something like that. I suppose she took your view of the Force less lightly than I did?"

"You know her well enough to guess?" Jacen asked.

"That's what I thought," Luke conceded.

"Of course, too much light can burn," Jacen said. "Without some sunscreen to temper it."

"Which is usually white, if not other colors," Luke said. "Black can absorb colors to the point where it can burn, like if you wear black clothes on a hot, sunny day."

"Can't disagree with that," Jacen said. "Of course, too much light, and it's possible that it can become darkness itself."

"Maybe," Luke said. "I wonder if Palpatine had been such a saint in his early life that it was what made him so evil later on."

"If it was, then Yoda's Order's complete temperance of darkness with the light side didn't save them from Palpatine's wrath," Jacen countered evenly.

"But it didn't completely destroy them," Luke argued. "That's why this Order is still alive."

"The Unifying Force hasn't destroyed us yet," Jacen said.

"Not yet, no. But given time..." Luke trailed off deliberately before: "Who knows? Maybe we'll never recover."

"The Unifying Force was what helped us stop the war," Jacen pointed out. "So I doubt it can be all that destructive to the Order later down the line, even after both of us have passed into the Force."

"There are always costs, Jacen," Luke said. "Yes, the Unifying Force was what helped us stop the war, and how you defeated Onimi, and even saved me from the venom in Shimrra's amphistaff. But don't you think that it would prove detrimental in the long-run, even if it hasn't after all these years?"

"I guess it's possible," Jacen acknowledged. "Anything is possible. But again, the light and dark side ideology may have brought about the end of the Sith, but we still fell from them nearly a millennium later."

"The Sith were never truly destroyed, in case you forgot," Luke said. "They were just reduced to two a generation."

"Sure," Jacen agreed. "And the rest of the Order didn't sense two Sith every generation seeding chaos through the galaxy to the point where the dark side blinded them completely until it was too late to save themselves?"

Luke sighed. "Maybe you're right. Perhaps the Unifying Force will not lead to the Jedi Order's downfall. My only hope is that if there are ever Jedi who were conflicted over this ideology, they would only be a few."

"Understandable, Uncle Luke," Jacen said. "But keep in mind, there were some Jedi who were conflicted over the light and dark ideologies in Yoda's time; just look at my grandfather, your father. We can only hope that no Jedi under the Potentium will fall like him; or, if they do fall like Anakin Skywalker, then they can be redeemed like him, too. That's really all we can hope for."

Luke didn't say anything for a while before he changed the subject. "Jaina's fine, in case you're wondering."

"What's she been doing?" Jacen asked, rolling with his uncle changing the subject like that.

"Chasing down pirates, renegade Yuuzhan Vong who escaped our radar after Zonama Sekot returned to the Unknown Regions, and other criminals throughout the galaxy," Luke said. "She was just engaged to Jagged Fel, by the way."

"Really?" Jacen asked. "Mister Block-of-Muscle-and-Wood? I didn't think those two would make it, what with him being in the Chiss Ascendancy and all; not to mention his _dazzling_ personality." His voice was dripped in sarcasm in regards to talking about Jag's personality.

"Well, Jaina sees something in him aside from his looks," Luke said. "Must be his dedication as a flight pilot. And, of course, since the Jedi aren't constrained to the Galactic Alliance as the previous Order was to the Old Republic, Jaina is acting as a Jedi representative in the Chiss Ascendancy."

"Along with chasing down pirates and other thugs in the rest of the galaxy?" Jacen asked. "Must be a busy woman now."

"She manages," Luke said. "Especially with Nom Anor still out there."

Jacen's eyes widened and his mouth dropped in shock. "Nom Anor?"

Luke nodded with regret. "I'm sorry I didn't let you know in any of our past communiques. I didn't want to disturb you on your sojourn, even with some of our disagreements. And I asked your parents and Jaina not to let you know either. If you want, you can help find him."

"What's he been doing?" Jacen asked. "How did he survive that explosion in Onimi's ship?"

"According to the sources that Jaina interrogated in the galactic underworld," Luke explained, "he's apparently been trying to racket up a new crime syndicate that he hopefully wants to rival the glory days of Black Sun. He's been getting some renegade Yuuzhan Vong, former Peace Brigade members, and generally other criminals; even some former Black Sun members as well.

"We don't know how he survived. For all we know, this could just be a rumor, and someone's just using Nom Anor's name to scare people; he hasn't made himself seen in public yet."

"Is Aunt Mara helping Jaina with the search?" Jacen asked. "I imagine she still holds a grudge against Nom Anor for that coomb spore virus he gave her before the war began."

"Since Jaina is too busy acting as a Jedi representative to the Chiss, she obviously can't dedicate as much time to catching Nom Anor, if this even is Nom Anor," Luke said. "So Mara's been hard at work over the past few months finding him, which is when we first heard these rumors of Nom Anor resurfacing, by herself."

"Where is she now?" Jacen asked.

"Somewhere on a world called Marfa, as that was where Nom Anor was rumored to be hiding out on," Luke said. "She hasn't found anything yet, but she won't stop until she finds a lead there."

Jacen was silent for a moment before he asked, "You know, since you're busy running the Order and Mara's been chasing leads on a possibly-false Nom Anor, how's Ben been doing?"

"I make time for Ben here in the Temple," Luke said. "But most of the time, he's taken care of by his YVH nanny, Nanna."

"YVH?" Jacen asked. "You mean a Yuuzhan Vong Hunter _droid_ is babysitting Ben?"

"Nanna's been very good protecting Ben and nurturing him to the best of her abilities," Luke said. "She might be even more patient with him than Mara and I could be." He chucked lightly. "Especially Mara, knowing her."

Jacen shared in a chuckle before saying, "I wanna help Aunt Mara find Nom Anor."

Luke nodded. "If you can depart. But I think we've digressed too long from why you came here; there was something about your doubts about yourself, is there? I can feel it from you, Jacen."

Jacen sighed. "Yes. When I rescued Raynar Thul, he told me that he saw me years ago, while I'd been in captivity under the Yuuzhan Vong."

"How is that possible?" Luke asked.

"Because I flow-walked, a technique I learned from the Aing-Tii," Jacen explained. "I told them that I wouldn't abuse it, and that I would only be able to look back to past events without affecting them."

"Yet you were there, wherever Raynar was, and you flow-walked back to when he saw you," Luke said. "I can see how you might be conflicted about this."

"Are we able to talk more about this, or should I go and help Aunt Mara?" Jacen asked, looking rather nervous.

"No, I think we can talk about this, Jacen," Luke said. "But before I talk about what I think this means, I have to ask: What do you think this means?"

Jacen looked to his feet before looking back up to his uncle. "I think this means that I did something wrong; that in my travels, I was somehow destined to abuse this power and cause this kind of thing to happen through the Force. And I had apparently fulfilled my destiny of doing just that by altering the current of events by letting Raynar in the past see me. And I'm not sure what that means for me in my future."

"That might be possible," Luke said. "But tell me, did past Raynar seeing you help you save him?"

Jacen thought about it. "Maybe. I guess. I don't... really know, actually. Maybe Raynar seeing me was what allowed Lomi Plo and Welk - the Dark Jedi who took him during the Myrkr mission - to know that I would have this power and call for me."

"And you responded and saved Raynar, and defeated Plo and Welk in the process, right?" Luke asked.

"Well, actually, Raynar killed Plo, but I did kill Welk," Jacen said. "But, yeah... I guess maybe Raynar seeing me there did save him in the long-run."

Luke smiled. "Then maybe it's the Force that allowed you to have this; that it destined you to save Raynar."

"By my own free will, though," Jacen said. "Which still can allow me to do untold damage in the future with these powers."

"But you can still be stopped, though," Luke said. "For either way, it is the will of the Force, Jacen." His smile brightened further. "Maybe you're right; maybe the Unifying Force won't lead to the Jedi's downfall."

Jacen reciprocated that smile; so this conversation began and ended pleasantly, even if it did erupt into a mild argument. "Now can I go help Aunt Mara?"

"Yes, you can," Luke replied. "I'll let her know. In the meantime, you can return to your ship and head to Marfa. Goodbye, Jacen." He then took out his commlink as Jacen stood up, bowed respectfully, and promptly left the office.


	6. Chapter 6

On the surface, all was peaceful on the multi-landscape world of Marfa, a planet known for its peaceful administration and tourism of its beautiful sites. But beneath this peaceful background was a criminal underworld that Jedi Master Mara Jade Skywalker was out to stop.

Outside of any of Marfa's cities ran a private factory that, as a front, produced new commlinks to the planet's citizens. Inside the factory, however, one could see that completed commlinks had already been shipped in so that they could be sold to Marfa's cities later at gouged prices; the real factory work was being done on a new drug called polisan. Workers sat their bench stools, bent over for hours on end piecing together the drugs that would make the factory's primary source of income.

The routine of the workers was soon interrupted when one of the entrance/exit doors to the factory was kicked down. Everyone on the illegal assembly lines turned to find a redheaded human female standing there with Marfa's sun glaring behind her, silhouetting Mara Jade Skywalker in light.

Guards in various corners of the factory sprung into action, taking out their standard-issue holdout blasters and aimed them at Mara. None of them bothered to tell her to put her hands in the air or anything before they started firing at her; she, however, expertly sent the bolts back to their firers with her blue-bladed lightsaber. Those guards that weren't dead at the end of the quarter-minute confrontation writhed on the floor of the factory in agony from the cauterized wounds that they now suffered.

Even as the firefight proceeded, all of the factory workers immediately abandoned their duties and rushed about to leave their work in a panic via the other exits. Mara paid none of them any mind as she began sprinting through the factory, looking for the office of the one that she had been searching for.

She soon found it marked with the individual's name - Manager Fleron Gamner - up on the second floor that could be accessed by four sets of stairs in the corners of the factory. Mara bypassed any of the staircases by Force-leaping up one level and landed squarely on the catwalk that would bring her to the office. She easily managed to destroy the automated turret that came out of the wall above the manager's door by using the Force to crush it, ending it with a small but satisfying explosion.

From there, nothing stopped Mara from also using the Force to blow the manager's door wide open and jumping in. Behind the desk at the other end of the office was a cowering male Togruta who aimed a small blaster at Mara. She deflected the shot that Fleron Gamner fired at her back to the blaster itself, violently knocking the weapon out of his hand and causing him to vainly nurse his now-injured hand.

Mara didn't give Gamner anytime to massage his hand as she leaped upon his desk, landed in a crouch, and grabbed the collar of his tunic with her free hand while leveling the tip of her lightsaber near his profusely-sweating head.

"Where is Nom Anor?" Mara asked hostilely.

"I don't know, I swear by the lives of my wife and children!" Gamner pleaded.

"You don't have any family, Gamner," Mara pointed out angrily. "I looked you up." She let her blade get slightly closer to the Togruta's head. "Don't lie to me again."

"But I don't know where he is, though!" Gamner cried. "I just run this factory for him, I swear! I only get untraceable comm messages from him once every month or so telling me what to do!"

"That's not what I wanted to hear," Mara growled.

She then raised her lightsaber, prompting Gamner to quickly shut his eyes and turn away from an unexpected death blow. But instead, he was simply thrown back to his seat, where he and his chair collapsed to the floor. Meanwhile, Mara leaped off his desk in a graceful back-flip and sliced his desk down the middle, rendering it in two.

Gamner looked up and stared back at Mara in scared confusion.

"You're the first guy I came across who Nom Anor personally contacts on a regular basis, even if it is a month or so," Mara said. "So that makes you more useful than any of the other informants I've come across."

She then reached a hand out and used the Force to pull Gamner's commlink from his belt and sending it right into her outstretched hand.

"Untraceable, eh?" Mara asked as she looked at the commlink. She then looked back down at the cowering Togruta. "All the other informants told me the same thing, Gamner. I've been able to decrypt them easily; that's how I've been able to find Nom Anor's lieutenants in the past month now, for your information. Pass that on to Nom Anor after you get a new commlink and when he contacts you again; _if_ he contacts you again, I should say."

She then turned away and briskly walked out of the office to leave the factory. Gamner warily stood back up to straighten himself out and began wondering how expensive the costs that this stoppage, combined with the damages that Skywalker just doled out against his property, would be.

.

After Mara returned to the airspeeder that she hid in the decorative forest that was near the polisan factory, she took it back to the city of Jalik a few miles away. Once there, she returned the speeder to the rental building that she picked it up from and walked back to the nearby public docking bay to return to the _Jade Shadow_.

After that, she launched the _Shadow_ into orbit, filed a flight plan with Marfa's Orbital Control, and then launched into hyperspace for a few minutes before dropping right back out into an empty system. With that, she began working on Gamner's commlink and started to do all she could to decrypt the apparently-untraceable connection that Nom Anor sent to his lackeys; she put all the computer knowledge that she learned from Zakarisz Ghent to deprogram the untraceable connection.

Minutes into her work, however, another vessel dropped out of hyperspace, and Mara placed the now-disassembled commlink on the copilot seat to signal the YT-2400 in the distance. But she stopped herself and smiled pleasantly once she sensed who was aboard.

_Jacen_.

The _Shadow_'s comm console pinged, and Mara answered it with a press of a button.

"Hey, Aunt Mara," Jacen Solo's voice came. "How've you been doing lately?"

"Things could be better, I'd say," Mara said.

"You mean like having Nom Anor in your grasp now?" Jacen inquired.

"Your uncle told you about that, I presume?"

"He did," Jacen confirmed. "I'm here to help in your investigation."

"Sorry, Jacen, but I don't need anymore help here, thanks," Mara said.

"Oh, but, Aunt Mara, I think you do," Jacen said. "I sense great anger and hatred in you for Nom Anor."

"Let me guess," Mara said. "You're here to help relieve my hatred and resentment against Nom Anor when I find him."

"Not only when you find him," Jacen said. "But even before that."

"So I don't do anything like kill him and turn to the dark side?" Mara asked. "Or, as you like to think these days, succumbing to my own inner darkness?"

"I see that, like Uncle Luke," Jacen said, "you, too, have your doubts about the Unifying Force."

"Your uncle is giving it more of the benefit of a doubt than I am," Mara replied. "Believe me, Jacen, while I don't deny that the Unifying Force helped us end the last war, I can tell you that the dark side of the Force is very real. If you had been around Palpatine or Darth Vader at all, never mind the length of time I spent with them, you would know how misguided you really are."

"So why can't I argue that Palpatine was simply embracing his own inner darkness then?" Jacen asked. "Or why Vader had been misled by Palpatine to follow his own?"

"Because here's why, Jacen," Mara said. "The Sith only embrace their dark feelings, which is the dark side. And in order for balance to be maintained in the Force, the Jedi must act purely on their positive inner feelings; the light side of the Force, as it were. If the Jedi have to balance light and dark in themselves, then the darkness will win out because the Sith only embrace that part of the Force. And even if there are no Sith left in the galaxy, Jacen, having the Jedi balance light and darkness in themselves is still a bad idea; not many Jedi can do that. And I have to keep myself firmly in the light after all the years of darkness that I went through serving Palpatine. So what do you have to say to that?"

Jacen was silent for a moment; but before Mara could say, "That's what I thought," her nephew spoke up.

"Well, Aunt Mara, let me ask you this," Jacen said. "In the years following the downfall of the Sith by Lord Kaan in One Thousand BBY, how many Jedi were there in the generations from then to Nineteen BBY? And I mean once per generation, not altogether."

"I don't think even your uncle would know that, Jacen," Mara said.

"Fine, fair enough," Jacen replied. "But how many Sith would there be in a generation?"

"Only two," Mara answered.

"And yet generations of two Sith hiding in the galaxy were able to bring down an entire Order of countless Jedi, hundreds at the least, by the time Palpatine became Emperor," Jacen said. "If what you say about the balance of the light and dark side is true, Aunt Mara, then the light side of the Force should have won out over the dark side."

"So, what, are you saying that if Yoda's Order had adopted the ideals of the Unifying Force, and had to balance out the light and darkness within them," Mara said, "that they could have seen Palpatine's reign coming and stopped him earlier?"

"Well, keep in mind," Jacen said, "the dark side - or rather the accumulation of the inner darkness of countless Sith from Darth Bane to Palpatine, as I see it - was able to blind Yoda and his Jedi from the latter's machinations until it was too late to stop him. Now while I can't speak for what could have been, I believe that if Yoda and his Order had adopted the Unifying Force, and balanced out their own inner light and darkness in the Force, they may have been immunized, as it were, to the dark side itself so that they wouldn't have been so blinded. Hence, Palpatine may have never been Emperor, Anakin Skywalker may have never become Darth Vader, and the decades of violence that Palpatine's reign entailed may have never happened.

"But, again, this is all just a theory," Jacen concluded.

Mara was silent for a moment before she asked, "So you think that if the Jedi continue to embrace the Unifying Force, we may know of whatever Sith threat is out there, waiting to destroy the Jedi, if there are still even Sith out there?"

"I think it's possible," Jacen stated. "I'm not entirely certain, but I think it might be."

"You _think_ it might be," Mara echoed.

"We can't know everything, Aunt Mara," Jacen said. "We can only strive to know as much as we can in the time we have in life."

"I can agree with that," Mara said. "But, tell me, Jacen: do you see anyone in the Order today who might be too conflicted with the Unifying Force that they would be unable to balance out their own 'inner light and darkness?'"

"I think so," Jacen confirmed. "But then again, the Living Force philosophy wouldn't suit everyone. As I said to Uncle Luke, just look at his father, my grandfather, Anakin. And I doubt he was the only Jedi in galactic history who wasn't able to conform to the Living Force ideals."

"Okay, but did your uncle ask you this?" Mara asked before inquiring: "Do you think that there may be _more_ Jedi who would be more conflicted with the Unifying Force than the Living Force?"

"Again, it's possible," Jacen said. "Has any Jedi been so conflicted that they just couldn't handle dealing with the Unifying Force since the war ended?"

"None so far, to the best of my memory," Mara said. "But it's only been a few years. The culmination of Palpatine's rule took a lot longer than that. And you know what they say, Jacen: the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

"And Yoda's Order didn't suffer the same thing?" Jacen countered.

Again, Mara was silent for a few seconds before she said, "You know, something just occurred to me. As Jedi, we often find ourselves killing for the greater good, something that the Sith do for their own diabolical purposes. And yet we rarely ever fall to the dark side, or to our own inner darkness, as you say. Do you think that with the Living Force, the Jedi have already, in some way, balance out their light and darkness, Jacen?"

"In some way, yes," Jacen confirmed. "Yet it is still too steeped in the light. Without darkness to temper that, a Jedi can possibly become delusional and start killing innocent beings, for whatever reason, under the notion that they are killing for the greater good."

"I suppose that's true," Mara replied. "But then they wouldn't be Jedi anymore, would they?"

"Not proper Jedi, at any rate," Jacen said. "At least not the way you or I view it, even with our differing views."

Mara looked down at her feet for a moment before asking, "Jacen, do you really think I'm in danger of falling to the dar- To my own inner darkness when I confront Nom Anor?"

"The possibility is always there," Jacen admitted. "I'm here to make sure that won't happen."

"And if it does?" Mara asked.

"If it does, well... we will see if it will be necessary for me to defeat you if your darkness becomes too destructive."

Mara grimaced. "Maybe you will have to kill me, if you can. That monster has done too much to me and our family; oh, sure, I was able to restrain myself from killing him when he surrendered at the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, but now, I don't know if I can, this time."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Jacen said. "Nom Anor won't face real justice if you kill him in vengeance."

"I know," Mara said. "But I don't know if I'll care in the future."


	7. Chapter 7

Hours after the end of their conversation, Mara had finally decrypted Gamner's commlink connection and retraced the Nom Anor communications to their point of origin.

"Belkadan?" Jacen asked over their ship-to-ship communication.

"Yes, that's what I said, Jacen," Mara said. "Belkadan."

"Where the war had started," Jacen remarked with graveness in his tone.

"Exactly," Mara agreed, just as gravely. "And it's so far out from the rest of the galaxy, not even the Galactic Alliance was interested in having it Reshaped from its Vongforming. It's a perfect place for Nom Anor to be hiding out on. I'm going to call your uncle and let him know about this."_  
_

After Mara commed Luke and told him about her and Jacen's next destination, Luke said, "All right; I'll have a squadron of StealthXs meet you; no doubt that if Nom Anor is hiding there, he'll have some defenses at this point that won't be sneezed at. I'll be sending the coordinates soon."

Moments later, coordinates appeared on one of the _Jade Shadow_'s computers, and Mara logged them in before sending them to Jacen in the _Solo Quest_.

"Thanks," Mara said to her husband. "Who will Jacen and I be meeting, by the way?"

"I'll be sending Kyp and his Dozen, if they agree," Luke said. "I'll let you know if there are any changes later. May the Force be with you, Mara."

"And you, too, my love," Mara said before signing off.

She and Jacen then jumped into hyperspace for the coordinates that Luke sent them. Hours later, they were met by a StealthX squadron that pinged each of them immediately on a shared channel.

"Mara, Jacen, good to hear from both of you again," Kyp Durron's voice said. "Especially you, Jacen; learn anything interesting on your sojourn?"

"Quite a bit, Kyp," Jacen said.

"Can the reunion chatter for later," Mara piped in. "We have a Yuuzhan Vong bastard to catch."

"Right," Kyp said. His voice then shifted focus to the rest of his squad. "Dozen, form up on the _Jade Shadow_ and _Solo Quest_, and let's head to Belkadan."

Hours after th_at_, the _Shadow_, _Quest_, and Dozen came out of hyperspace right in the Belkadan system.

The system was populated by various ships of different classes and sizes, with very few being capital vessels. There were three MC40a cruisers, some corvettes, and an _Imperial_-class Star Destroyer further out in the system.

And they all went to alert when the small Jedi fleet entered their turf.

Mara tried to contact Kyp and Jacen to try to give them battle plans, only to find that her communications were only receiving static; comm signals were being jammed now. And that left only one other option.

She entered the battle-meld that was now being formed, her consciousness joining Jacen's, Kyp's, and all the other Jedi in the Dozen. And without needing to use words - at least not verbally - they set out to accomplish their implicitly-stated goals.

The Dozen allowed their StealthX fighters to merge their appearances into the star-studded blackness of space all around them before zooming away toward the enemy vessels that could neither see them with their naked eyes or their advanced sensors. Lasers and other projectiles that seemed to come out of nowhere were fired and hit dozens of pirated vessels, either blowing them to pieces or severely weakening their shields, as was the case of the capital vessels.

The _Shadow_ and the _Quest_, meanwhile, headed toward Belkadan, firing along the way against enemy ships while using the battle-meld to avoid hitting any of the near-invisible StealthXs. Mara blew away several Uglies - X-wing-TIE fighter combination ships - while performing various maneuvers with the _Shadow_ that allowed her to avoid enemy projectiles where she could; what hits that her ship took were absorbed by the shields that had time to prepare themselves in the face of the enemy's confused and frightened attempts to defend themselves.

Jacen was doing marginally better; even with the Force, he was no Han Solo in the cockpit of a modified YT-1300, and he certainly wasn't as good as his sister or even his late brother, Anakin. But he held his own more than competently against the pirates that seemed like bumbling imbeciles in comparison to trained Yuuzhan Vong pilots that he had fought in the war; in several instances, he performed more-than-basic maneuvers that allowed the enemies to blow each other away as they tried to blow the _Solo Quest_ into oblivion.

.

Down on the surface of Belkadan, in the building that once housed the ExGal-4 research facility a decade earlier - and which had been remodeled as a secret criminal headquarters - Nom Anor, now wearing an eye-patch like an ancient water-treading pirate over the empty eye socket that once housed his deadly, venom-spitting plaeriyn bol, growled in both anger and fear at what his orbital vidcams were showing him.

Not only were his pirate ships being utterly wiped out by relatively few camouflaged ships - which he felt were piloted by experienced Jedi, given how well they were flying - that the cams could barely discern, but a YT-1300 that he doubted was the _Millennium Falcon_ and the star yacht that he knew to be the _Jade Shadow_ were expertly flying all around at a slow but gradual rate for Belkadan.

Where they would get to him so that Mara Jade Skywalker could exact her revenge on him.

Nom Anor stood up from the seat of his office desk and briskly headed out the door, thinking about how he could escape the grasp of the _Shadow_, her fellow ships, and Skywalker's wrath.

While he knew that Skywalker was a Jedi - the member of an Order that banned the practice of revenge - and that she had spared his life during the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar all those years ago, he still had his doubts about her character; her past as Emperor's Hand and whatever lingering hatred she still had for him still carried a fifty-fifty chance that she could kill him out of vengeance. That, and the fact that the Jedi had this new, more morally-gray view of the Force gave Nom Anor less confidence of his likelihood to survive his next encounter with Mara Jade Skywalker.

Out in the corridor leading away from his office, Nom Anor was intercepted by his male Neimoidian lieutenant, Shipna Judak.

"Sir!" Judak called before getting into Nom Anor's way. "What should we do?"

"We abandon all our operations here and escape to wherever we can, Shipna," Nom Anor said. "So you can..." Then it dawned on him. "Actually, do you think you and your men and women can cover my escape before you scatter to the solar winds?"

Judak gulped in fear of that thought, of having to put his superior's life ahead of his own - Nom Anor could relate, he thought; he hated doing that back when he had superiors - but the Neimoidian nodded after five seconds. "Yes, sir."

"Good," Nom Anor said. And without another word, he continued on his way to his hideout's hangar bay, with Judak hurrying to catch up.

.

Partway to Belkadan, Mara noticed an unmarked bullet-shaped vessel coated entirely in dull silver was rocketing away from the planet and heading away from the battle. It was accompanied by a retinue of Uglies, X-wings, and TIE fighters.

In between blowing away more enemies, she reached out with the Force to find out what presence was aboard.

She found only an empty void; one that was all too characteristic of a Yuuzhan Vong.

_Jacen_, she said through the battle-meld. _You see that ship flying away in the distance?_

_Yeah_, Jacen replied.

_I think Nom Anor is aboard that ship. Can you use your Vongsense to confirm my suspicions?_ While it was a long-shot, Mara felt that she had to know that this was, indeed, Nom Anor, and not one of the few Vong left in the galaxy that escaped the grasp of Zonama Sekot and the living planet's journey back into the Unknown Regions six years earlier.

_I'll have to drop out of the battle-meld for a bit to do that_, Jacen warned her.

_Do it then_.

Mara then felt her nephew's presence disappear altogether from the Force, albeit not in a way that made it seem as if he had died like when he was in Vergere's captivity, and waited while she continued to blow more pirate ships into brief fireballs.

As quickly as Jacen disappeared from the meld and the Force, he reappeared.

_It's him_, he confirmed.

And that was all she needed to turn away from the remaining pirate starfighters, allowing members of the Dozen to take care of them for her, as she zoomed in for Nom Anor's escape vessel. Almost immediately, the squadron of ships defending the coward's fleeing ship turned to meet the _Shadow_ - and the _Quest_, Mara realized from her rearview sensors - in a formation that Mara couldn't help but notice seemed... reluctant and fearful.

Mara smirked. _Cowardice only breeds more cowardice_, she thought as she started firing away with her turbolaser batteries. Jacen's _Quest_ joined in two seconds later for artillery support, and in the span of half a minute, all of Nom Anor's defense ships were rendered into slag at best and space dust at worst by the weapons of the _Jade Shadow_ and _Solo Quest_.

As the _Shadow_ and _Quest_ neared Nom Anor's ship, the latter began launching a volley of proton torpedoes and concussion missiles right for the former two. Mara then took evasive action by peeling off to her port while firing away with her lasers, blowing away some of the torps and conc missiles and producing explosions that wiped away their fellow projectiles. The _Shadow_, meanwhile, had managed to get out of range of the shockwaves that the explosions produced while the _Solo Quest_ kept up on Nom Anor's ship opposite of Mara's ship, having peeled off to starboard when the projectile volley was launched.

Mara soon looked at one of her sensor boards to find that Nom Anor's escape craft was now nearing the edge of Belkadan's gravity well, and would soon no doubt launch for hyperspace. By no means would she allow that to happen, so she began shooting her turbolasers for the treacherous Vong's ship at rapid-fire.

Soon, the lasers pierced through Nom Anor's shields and took out his engines; yet the _Shadow_ kept on firing, puckering away at the reinforced metal of his escape craft.

_Aunt Mara, that's enough!_ Jacen's telepathic voice called out through the battle-meld. _If you'll continue this, you'll kill him!_

_Good_, she sent back before dropping out of the meld entirely. She didn't let up on her barrage against Nom Anor's escape ship.

Soon, however, her lasers disappeared before they ever reached the Vong's vessel. Mara stopped firing to wonder how this could be before her ship rocked from out-of-nowhere laser hits that punctured through her shields and took out her turbolaser batteries.

A second later, the pirates' sole Star Destroyer - now dying from the attacks brought upon by the invisible Dozen - lit up in a brilliant explosion that killed all aboard, and which shut off the comm signal jamming. That was what brought about the persistent pinging on Mara's comm console that she promptly answered.

"Sorry I had to do that to the _Shadow_, Aunt Mara," Jacen's voice came, "but you left me no other choice."

"What did you do to my ship, Jacen?" Mara asked angrily.

"I used a little technique I learned from the Aing-Tii," Jacen explained. "I teleported the last of the lasers you fired on Nom Anor's ship away from his direction to the _Shadow_."

"You shouldn't have done that, Jacen," Mara growled, as she tried to restrain the depths of her anger. "Do you know how much this is going to cost me in damages?"

"Again, I'm sorry," Jacen apologized in a straightforward tone, "but I couldn't let you kill Nom Anor. You would have been succumbing to your own anger and inner darkness; I couldn't let you do that. And besides, Nom Anor deserves to face true justice for all that he's done."

Mara sighed, knowing that he was right... about this, anyway. She and Jacen had discussed this; she was at least somewhat glad that it didn't escalate into violence between her and her nephew.

"So I suppose you won't be allowing me to take Nom Anor prisoner aboard the _Shadow_, huh?" Mara asked.

"I think it'd be best if I took him in, yeah," Jacen agreed.

"Fine," Mara replied reluctantly. "And I think I said all I needed to say to that coward back in the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar anyway."


	8. Chapter 8

After Jacen had the _Solo Quest_ docked with Nom Anor's derelict escape craft, the Jedi Knight entered through the now-conjoined airlocks and found himself aboard the bullet-shaped vessel. With his Vongsense now taking over from the Force, he located Nom Anor in the open-door cockpit up ahead, where the treacherous Yuuzhan Vong was hiding behind the wall left of the door. Jacen was sure, from his presence, that he was holding a holdout blaster in both hands, ready to jump out and shoot whoever was coming his way.

Unhooking his lightsaber from his belt, Jacen made no effort to mask his approach toward the cockpit. Partway to his destination, Nom Anor, as expected, jumped out from his hiding spot and shot his blaster for Jacen. In less time than it took for the Yuuzhan Vong to pull the trigger, Jacen had his lightsaber active and batting the bolts against the bulkhead, floor, and ceiling of the corridor that he was still easily approaching.

In a matter of seconds, during which Nom Anor desperately increased the intensity with which he shot at Jacen, the latter had finally approached his quarry and sliced the blaster in half by the barrel before Nom Anor could fire another shot. But instead of leveling the tip of his lightsaber up near Nom Anor's throat, Jacen deactivated his weapon, hooked it back to his belt, and placed both arms out as if he wanted a hug from the Yuuzhan Vong.

"Get the vibroblade out of the way," Jacen said sardonically.

As if obeying him, Nom Anor - who Jacen noticed had dark gloves - unsheathed his vibroblade from a pocket on his belt and lashed out with it. But Jacen easily pivoted out of the way to grab the wrist of Nom Anor's weapon-wielding hand and used his own free hand to punch the Yuuzhan Vong right on his flattened nose-ridge. Nom Anor then stumbled back as Jacen easily yanked the vibroblade out of his opponent's hand and used the Force to break the blade from its hilt, allowing both pieces of the weapon to clatter to the deck.

"So what else you got?" Jacen asked.

Nom Anor then punched out with the hand that Jacen distinctly remembered his mother, Leia, cutting off with her lightsaber before the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar ended. His danger sense tingled, so he ducked beneath the blow and felt a violent whoosh blow through his hair.

_Super-strong artificial hand_, Jacen thought as he grabbed the wrist that contained the robotic hand and flipped Nom Anor to the deck on his back. He then turned the Yuuzhan Vong onto his belly and bent that arm into place, effectively pinning the alien pirate there and winning the brief and one-sided fight.

And with a jolt of Electric Judgment, Jacen shorted out Nom Anor's artificial hand, rendering it completely inert and utterly useless.

"Oh, how I missed you," Jacen said sarcastically as he yanked Nom Anor to his feet and trapping both the alien's arms behind his back. He then began walking his prisoner back to the escape craft's airlock to board the _Solo Quest_. "I see you took to rejecting your people's hatred of artificial technology quite nicely, what with the robot hand, blaster, ordinary pirate ships, and all."

"You know as well as I do, Jacen Solo, that to continue hating this technology is folly," Nom Anor growled as he vainly tried to struggle out of Jacen's grasp. "That, and the fact that I never truly believed in my people's ways to begin with."

"And yet you continued to serve the likes of Tsavong Lah and Supreme Overlord Shimrra for your own interests," Jacen said. "Or rather, what was his name again? Oh, yeah, the guy whose ship you happened to model your own escape craft after."

"You noticed that, huh?" Nom Anor asked, as if he and Jacen were friends. "Yes, I don't know what I was thinking modelling my escape craft after Onimi's."

"Speaking of which, how did you manage to escape his bunker ship?" Jacen asked. "And I thought you said you'd rather die with Onimi than live in the new order that the galaxy would face."

"Remember when I tried to trick you and your family into going into that garbage disposal?" Nom Anor asked.

"Yep."

"Well, while you caught that, something you didn't catch was that there was a second escape craft from the bunker ship. My best guess for why it was there was it was probably because it was meant for others who may have been there who wouldn't have been able to fit into the one that Shimrra and Onimi would have taken; people that they may have cared about or who they thought was important to them, such as priests, warriors, and the like."

"Sounds surprisingly reasonable, given how crazy both Shimrra and Onimi were," Jacen said.

"I've been around them for a bit," Nom Anor said. "Even Onimi wasn't immune to reason."

"I'll take your word for it," Jacen said, "for what it's worth."

By now, they had arrived at the guest quarters above the _Solo Quest_, and Jacen shoved Nom Anor inside. The Yuuzhan Vong briefly looked around before turning back to his captor.

"No cell?" Nom Anor asked.

"I'm not interested in keeping prisoners, so this is the best I can do for you," Jacen said.

"Looks nice," Nom Anor said as he returned his gaze around the quarters again.

"Don't get so comfy," Jacen said. "I'm bringing you back to Denon where you'll be facing war crime _and_ pirating charges."

Nom Anor sighed. "At least I wasn't taken by your aunt. I'm not even sure she would have let me live."

"Thank me for that," Jacen said. "She would have blown your ass to bits."

"I'm not surprised," Nom Anor replied sardonically.

Jacen didn't even wait for the thanks that he knew that Nom Anor wouldn't give him. He simply shut the door on him and locked the Yuuzhan Vong in from the outside before turning to head back for the _Solo Quest_'s cockpit. There, he joined Mara and Kyp's Dozen for their hyperspace jump back to Denon.


	9. Chapter 9

After the _Solo Quest_ jumped back into the Denon system with the _Jade Shadow_ and Kyp's Dozen, they were all hailed by different officers of Orbital Control.

Jacen was hailed by a male being who had the deep guttural tone of a Bothan. And while he did not want to judge that - for all he knew, it could have been a human with a sore throat or something - or stereotype any members of races and species, he still hesitated before he told the officer about his prisoner. He still recalled that the Bothan species, as a whole, had declared _ar'krai_ - the act of total war - against the Yuuzhan Vong for the death of Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya during the war's Battle of Coruscant. Jacen understood that not every Bothan was behind this - after all, Admiral Traest Kre'fey had been part of the Sekot Accords after the war ended - but he was still wary.

"This is Captain Jacen Solo of the _Solo Quest_," Jacen said. "I have the Yuuzhan Vong war criminal and pirate leader Nom Anor aboard my ship." Even if Orbital Control didn't have life-sign sensors that would have detected a Yuuzhan Vong presence aboard the _Quest_, Jacen wasn't sure if he could have lied about this unless it was absolutely necessary.

There was silence on the other end of the comm for such a time that Jacen thought that maybe the connection had inadvertently cut out. But then the guttural officer returned with, "Please proceed to these coordinates. Do not deviate from this path or you will be arrested for harboring a Yuuzhan Vong criminal from Galactic Alliance custody."

"Understood, Control," Jacen said. He then engaged the _Quest_ for the coordinates that showed up on one of the ship's console screens. Alongside him, the _Jade Shadow_ and Kyp's Dozen descended toward Denon with him for the coordinates that would lead back to the Jedi Temple.

Minutes later, however, Jacen found that he wasn't approaching a GA prison for Nom Anor to be held for his arraignment, but instead, there was an abandoned factory building in one of Denon's slum districts. On the roof of this building were two Bothans that had an ion cannon mounted and aimed for the _Quest_. Once Jacen realized that he had been led astray by the treacherous Orbital Control officer, the cannon was fired.

Jacen veered the _Quest_ hard to starboard, but before he could fire off a laser to destroy the ion cannon, another burst was fired from the mounted weapon. The _Quest_ was veered to port this time, then upward, then downward, but just as Jacen was finally about to fire off a shot, the ion cannon finally got a burst right through his shields.

And just like that, the _Quest_ and all of its internal systems went dead as it dropped like a stone to the ground hundreds of meters below. Jacen used the Force to cushion the impact that the ship would make once it landed; and even with the Force-cushioning, the impact was still bone-jarring. But once the impact passed over, Jacen dropped the Force-cushioning, unbuckled his safety harness, and rushed to the guest cabin where he left Nom Anor.

He opened the door up to find that the eye-patched Yuuzhan Vong was lying prone on the cabin's bed, his entire body trembling as he grasped the bed's sides. When he finally noticed Jacen standing there, he quickly pushed himself off the bed and swiped away anything on his form that would make him look undignified, as if it wasn't too late for that.

"What happened?" Nom Anor asked.

"We were shot down by an ion cannon," Jacen answered.

"By whom?"

"Bothans."

Nom Anor's eyes widened. "I see they haven't dropped their vow of _ar'krai_ then."

"It's the True Victory Party. They..." Jacen trailed off as his eyes widened from his danger sense tingling. He then spread out his arms quickly, and then he and Nom Anor simply disappeared from the _Solo Quest_'s guest cabin.

When they next appeared, they were over a dozen meters away from the outside of the ship, where three different barrages of lasers - each coming from a different rooftop around the city block that Jacen and Nom Anor stood in - were firing away on the downed _Quest_.

When the Bothans who were firing the mounted, high-powered laser rifles noticed Jacen and Nom Anor, they all shifted their aim for the two of them.

Jacen was about to grab Nom Anor's forearm to turn him around so they could run away together, but he found that the Yuuzhan Vong coward had already turned away and was running away for himself. Jacen quickly caught up to him, however, and erected a thick Force-shield to protect him and his prisoner from the high-powered laser blasts raining down upon them.

After a few moments, though, Jacen's strength rapidly waned, but it was enough to run with Nom Anor into an abandoned apartment complex to their left. From there, Jacen dropped the Force-shield, but he and Nom Anor continued to run for the apartment's basement via the nearby staircase ahead as the laser blasts broke through the weakened duracrete that the complex was made of.

Once the two of them were in the basement and Jacen had the wooden door closed behind them - which he doubted would stand up to a high-powered laser attack - he and Nom Anor hurried over to the window ahead that would get them out to the other side of the building.

Once they had climbed back outside through the window that Nom Anor opened up, he and Jacen continued sprinting for the alley on the other side of the dead street. However, the Bothans that continued to fire the mounted rifles noticed them, and fired at them again.

Nevertheless, they missed just in time for Jacen and Nom Anor to enter the closed-ended alley on the other end of the street. There, they rushed for the sewer grate in the middle of the alley, which Jacen used the Force to lift up and waved Nom Anor inside.

"And I thought I'd never have to go underground like this ever again," the Yuuzhan Vong muttered before climbing down.

Once Nom Anor was far enough down, Jacen began climbing on down after him. He used the Force to levitate the sewer grate back into place over his head.

By the time both of them had reached the bottom of the sewer, Nom Anor asked, "So what do we do now?"

"We go to the Jedi Temple," Jacen said. "That's probably the safest option for you, even with Aunt Mara around."

"I suppose you know that sewers well enough that we can make it there without getting lost along the way?" Nom Anor inquired with an indignant tone.

"I can use the Force to sense where the Temple's inhabitants are," Jacen said. "We can use that as a beacon. The trip may take us a few days, though."

"And what are we going to survive on?" Nom Anor asked as he waved around. "Sewer rats? The urine and fecal matter of different aliens and beings that populate this planet?"

"We can resurface to get something after we have the True Victory Party off our tails," Jacen said. Then he cocked his head in the realization of the flaw in that plan. "Well, _I_ can resurface to get us something to eat and drink. I mean, you don't have an ooglith masquer and... yeah."

"By your lead, then." Nom Anor waved in the direction they were facing.

"Actually, I'm sensing that the Temple's inhabitants are that way," Jacen said, pointing in the opposite direction.

Nom Anor scowled, but said nothing as he let Jacen lead the way.

A couple minutes later, after rounding some bends, they heard voices and footsteps echo down behind them.

"I have a Force-sound-buffer up now," Jacen said after a moment. "So let's hurry."

Indeed, they both resumed their running forward in time to meet a three-way split.

"Which way?" Nom Anor asked.

"This way," Jacen said as he pointed to the leftmost bend.

Once they were in the leftmost sewer tunnel, and had rounded the bends there, Nom Anor asked, "How long can you keep that sound-buffer up?"

"Just a few more seconds and..." Like that, regular sound returned to them as they could hear voices and footsteps behind them again.

"Oh, come on," Jacen muttered as he and Nom Anor continued on their way.

Soon, they came up on a ladder that led back up to the surface.

"Can you sense anyone waiting for us back on the surface?" Nom Anor asked.

After a short moment, Jacen shook his head. "No. This is our best option."

Nom Anor nodded and hurried up the ladder with Jacen after him. At the top, the Yuuzhan Vong pushed the sewer grate up and open onto another dead street, and Jacen leaped up and past his alien charge as the shadows of their Bothan pursuers appeared around the last bend they passed. Once Nom Anor was on the street with Jacen, the latter used the Force to replace the grate back where it was,

"This way," Jacen said as he pointed to the one abandoned apartment in the street. He and Nom Anor headed in, with Jacen sensing that not a single soul on the street was looking out to spot a Yuuzhan Vong running out in the open, and then the two of them collapsed on their buttocks against the door that Jacen closed behind them.

"Let me guess," Nom Anor said. "The True Victory Party are a group of Bothans who want to take _ar'krai_ all the way, even after the war ended."

"Yeah," Jacen answered.

"Say, how did you just... teleport us out of your ship like that?" Nom Anor inquired.

"A technique I learned from a Force-sect," Jacen explained. "It's how I stopped my aunt from killing you back over Belkadan, as a matter of fact."

"Well, then, why didn't you use it so you can teleport us to the Jedi Temple?" Nom Anor asked.

"I can only use it once every few hours or so," Jacen said. "Best guess is five."

"Well, even with that, why did you say we had to make a walk that would take us a few days?" Nom Anor inquired.

Jacen grinned. "That was just to mess with ya, like I did when I deflected all your shots back aboard your Onimi-like escape ship."

Nom Anor scowled. Then his expression became contemplative again. "Wait a minute: If you can sense the Jedi here, can they not sense you in turn?"

"They can, and I know what you're thinking," Jacen said. "But I just gave them the telepathic impression not to look for us."

"Why?"

"Because the Jedi who come looking for us, the True Victory Party members hunting us will use the Jedi as a guide," Jacen answered. "So right now, we should rest here and wait for the next few hours or so before I can teleport us into the Jedi Temple."

Nom Anor nodded before he said, "Something just occurred to me."

"Hmm?"

"I've heard about this Unifying Force theory that you Jedi are going by now," Nom Anor elaborated. "It's a gray view of the Force, is it not?"

"If by gray, you mean that it requires the Jedi to balance out their own inner light and darkness in the Force, then yes, the Unifying Force is a gray view of the Force," Jacen answered.

"Was you 'messing' with me back aboard my ship you balancing out your inner light and darkness?" Nom Anor asked.

"I guess so, sure," Jacen answered.

Nom Anor smirked. "You know, given our past encounters, and the encounters I've had with your friends and family during the war, I could have taken advantage of your little indulgence and have found a way to escape. How would you have felt about that?"

Jacen's eyes widened as he looked at Nom Anor. "That's a good question. I never thought of that." He looked away and adopted a contemplative look; no doubt, Nom Anor thought, because he was thinking about the possible ramifications of his procrastination.

Jacen then smirked and looked back to his charge. "I guess I got to learn the easy way, huh? And, really, that was bad for you because you, the expert on escaping, were caught that easily. You've gotten rusty in this, haven't you?"

Nom Anor groaned as he then looked away from Jacen. "I suppose I have. Spending all those years hiding out, letting those pirates work for me while I lived comfortably in that base..." He shook his head in disappointment of himself. "I have gotten soft, I will say."

"Good thing I saved you then," Jacen remarked. "Because if you're that soft, Aunt Mara would have eaten you up."

"Indeed," Nom Anor said. "And is it weird if I say that I'd rather take my chances with the True Victory Party than your aunt?"

"Would you?" Jacen replied with a raised eyebrow.

"No," Nom Anor said without hesitation.

"And that's where your cowardice matches your intelligence, Nommy," Jacen said.

"Nommy?" Nom Anor asked.

"Hey, if I'm gonna spend the next few hours with you, I guess we should try to be quasi-friends, at least," Jacen said.

"After all I've done to you, your friends, and family?" Nom Anor asked.

Jacen shrugged.

"And you say I have gotten soft," Nom Anor remarked.

Jacen made a wry smile at Nom Anor before looking away again.


	10. Chapter 10

Upon sensing Bothans coming, Jacen figured that they may have life-sign readers that would find him and Nom Anor. So he used a Force-technique to reach out to the approaching True Victory Party team's L-S readers and scrambled them so that the readers came back with a negative for any life in the apartment that he and the Yuuzhan Vong were hiding out in.

The TVP team passed by in a close-topped landspeeder with tinted windows, which Jacen saw via peering out the window from behind the wall next to it. He cast a Fallanassi illusion to make it look like he wasn't there to the naked eye, in case any of the Bothans in the vehicle saw him.

Jacen then ducked back next to the window and looked back at Nom Anor, who was now huddled to the wall next to the door that, if it had been forced open, he could catch the attackers who came through by surprise. The Yuuzhan Vong mouthed, _Are we clear yet?_

Jacen nodded.

Nom Anor then let out a breath of relief and stood back up to approach Jacen. "How much longer is it going to take you before you can teleport us to the Jedi Temple?" the alien asked impatiently.

"Less than four hours now," Jacen said. He took another look around and said, "I don't think this place has anything that we can watch a holofilm on; if there any leftover holofilms here, that is." He looked back at Nom Anor. "You have any ideas to pass the time?"

"I do not know," Nom Anor replied. "Do you?"

"No," Jacen answered dully.

Nom Anor sighed and turned to approach the couch of the apartment room that they took. He fell against it and adopted a pose of impatience by placing an elbow on his knee and his face in his palm, as if that was the quickest way to pass the time.

Jacen then joined the Yuuzhan Vong by sitting down next to him and sighed. He then looked at the eye-patched alien and asked, "You wanna tell me a little bit about yourself?"

"What?" Nom Anor asked incredulously.

Jacen shrugged. "I only know you from our experiences in the war. I know nothing about your past before it. You wanna tell me about it, just to pass the time?"

Nom Anor sighed. "Fine. I suppose I can.

"I grew up in Domain Anor, which, as you may have gathered, is the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of a family. We were a domain that was as well off as we could be in the midst of a slum civilization that was trying to find a new home; a new home that we would gain through violence and barbarism, of course. I had some siblings and cousins, but I don't remember all of them quite so fondly, let us just say. And I was glad that I never saw any of them again, except for Phaa, who I contacted just before I tried to kill Zonama Sekot before the recent war ended. I never knew what happened to Phaa after that, but I presume that Shimrra - or Onimi, as it were - had him executed to keep word of the living planet a secret from the Yuuzhan Vong as much as possible.

"But anyway, as a child," Nom Anor continued, "I intermingled frequently with children who were of both higher and lower statuses, though I associated with those who were more on the bottom of the food chain; they were much easier to, as you would say it, hang around with than children of wealthier families. Granted, I rarely ever encountered children of Shamed castes or domains, and that was just because I had encountered them on accident and did everything I could to avoid them at all costs. I would not want to be Shamed by the gods, after all."

"And look where your life went when it came to Shamed Ones, huh?" Jacen remarked.

Nom Anor gave a wry smile in spite himself. "Indeed. Of course, my interactions with those of lower castes and domains allowed me to see some cruel actions, and in some cases, I had to enact some of those actions, whether it was to seek revenge for my self-esteem, or simply for my survival. That was when I learned that one of the key tools in that, aside from violence and murder - both cold-blooded and heat-of-the-moment alike - was deception. Lies and trickery became an integral part to how I lived with other Yuuzhan Vong children, and it became something that became all the more integral to me as I grew up."

"I suppose you thought that Yun-Harla was smiling on you," Jacen said.

"Oh, yes, I did. I became one of her devoted followers; not as fanatical as some of my colleagues, but I believed in her as much as the other gods, even if I had more faith in her than even Yun-Yuuzhan, never mind any of the other lesser gods. I guess that is why I became an Intendant; Yun-Harla smiled on the likes of Intendants."

"So when did you start losing faith in Yun-Harla and the other gods?" Jacen asked.

"During the war, actually," Nom Anor answered. "I had my doubts before the war started. But as it progressed, I started losing faith almost easily, especially with the losses that we began sustaining after we took Coruscant. This loss of faith culminated, though, after I learned that the eighth cortex of the Shaper Qahsa - the level of connectedness that one could have with the gods - was completely false, and that Shimrra was a madman."

"Then, of course, Ebaq Nine happened, and you fled underground to take control of the Shamed Ones as Yu'shaa the Prophet, I presume," Jacen said.

"That's right," Nom Anor said. "Ironic; I had lost all faith in the religion that I had served most of my life under, and I had started to spread the word of a heresy that was equally as false; and all for my own benefit, just so I could replace Shimrra on the throne. And it was in spreading propaganda about the _Jedi_ no less."

"I guess you don't take comfort in knowing that the heresy wasn't totally in vain," Jacen said. "That it helped aid the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi in taking down Onimi and Shimrra."

"What do you think?" Nom Anor replied sarcastically.

Jacen cocked his head in acknowledgement of the Yuuzhan Vong's point.

"I hope you don't pepper me with your life story, Solo," Nom Anor said. "I had been infiltrating your galaxy for decades leading up to the invasion. So I kept up with the general gossip behind the lives of the Solo family, since they were heroes in the Rebellion, after all."

"Then what else have we got to talk about?" Jacen asked.

"Exactly," Nom Anor said.

An awkward silence passed between them as they blankly stared at the wall ahead of them for a few moments before Jacen came up with another question.

"Can you tell me what Onimi was like?"

"Well, you met him," Nom Anor pointed out. "And you killed him. I think you have a good impression of what he was like."

"Yes, but I have a feeling - a gut instinct, not something borne from the Force - that tells me that the Onimi I knew for a few minutes wasn't the Onimi you spent a lot more time around," Jacen said.

"Well, then," Nom Anor said, "if I were to tell you what he was like in my experiences with him and Shimrra alone, I'd say that Onimi was a nuisance. That ugly bastard liked to prance around Shimrra's court giving these little poems that talked about the upper caste and how they were failing Shimrra. He seemed quite amused with himself and with everyone and everything around him, as if he could do whatever he liked."

"Which, of course, was what he was doing," Jacen concluded.

"Indeed," Nom Anor said. "But I suppose that you knew him as the psychopathic madman that he really was."

"He wanted to kill everything in existence and remake the universe in his own image as a god, so, yeah," Jacen said. "He was pretty messed up."

"I wonder how he would have gone about it," Nom Anor said. "With Shimrra dead, what was he going to do? Simply go around the galaxy in his escape craft and kill everything that wasn't him? I mean, sure, he had the Force and the ability to control minds, but if you think about it, why didn't he try to do that to you? Or did he?"

"He didn't because he thought that I, along with Jaina, were the incarnations of Yun-Shuno and Yun-Harla respectively," Jacen said. "So he probably thought that we would have been too powerful to control, even if we weren't. Which means that even if he went about controlling the minds of many others, he wouldn't take over the minds of Jedi not because he was unable to, but because he wouldn't dare to."

"I see," Nom Anor said. "You know, that actually reminds me of the time when the sacrifice on Coruscant that was meant as a prelude to Nas Choka's invasion on Mon Calamari was interfered by the Shamed Ones. If you think about it, Onimi could have simply taken over the minds of the Shamed Ones attacking and have them kill themselves. And he could later write it off through Shimrra's mouth that it was a blessing by the gods who didn't want their sacrifice interrupted, which would mean that they were in favor of the Yuuzhan Vong's invasion on Dac. In fact, that could have even made me doubt my own doubts about the existence of the gods as well as bolstering the waning faiths of my people."

"In that case, then," Jacen said, "I don't think it was because Onimi was unable to control the Shamed Ones; I think he lacked the foresight and tactical knowledge to do that. He thought strictly in that what was under his control, he wanted further control over it, like the warriors who tried to defend the sacrifice, instead of focusing his power against what he couldn't control, like the attacking Shamed Ones, which was probably his undoing in the end. Had he been smarter with his abilities, he would have been an even greater force to be reckoned with in controlling his people. Could you imagine how much of a threat he could have been on his own had he decided to take control of the minds of Yuuzhan Vong and Galactic Alliance soldiers and citizens alike? He probably could've been unstoppable."

"Or the power he could have had on the Jedi," Nom Anor said.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Jacen agreed with a nod. "Or how about taking over the minds of yammosks to increase his power over those around him?"

"That is a scary thought," Nom Anor stated with a reflective tone.

"You know, he actually got his power by fusing himself with yammosk DNA, which was how he became deformed and got his powers," Jacen explained. "Jaina told me that in the weeks after the war ended. Onimi went on this rant about his origins before I stepped in to fight him."

"Well, I suppose that makes sense, him getting mind-control abilities from a yammosk," Nom Anor said. "Then I suppose the only things that would be an actual threat to him are yammosk jammers and Zonama Sekot; and even then, neither are invincible, not even the living world itself. It still had a chance of dying by that Alpha Red-infected Yuuzhan Vong vessel, after all."

"Yeah," Jacen agreed.

"Another thing I remembered," Nom Anor said, "is that as the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar approached, Onimi lost control of Shimrra, it seemed. Shimrra started making decisions on his own that were going against Onimi's wishes, which effectively made Shimrra the actual Supreme Overlord. How could that have happened?" He wasn't asking Jacen in particular.

"Jaina told me about that, too," Jacen said. "She told me that Onimi had been 'preoccupied with defeating her,' which we both think meant that he was too preoccupied in fighting the gods instead of controlling Shimrra. I don't know how that could have been; maybe it was, as you said, when he was taking over the warriors at the sacrifice rather than the Shamed Ones, and that loss of control allowed Shimrra's broken, unstable mind to resurface, uncontrollable even to himself, never mind Onimi. Or maybe it's just that after so many decades of his mind being controlled, Shimrra must have somehow finally developed an immunity to it in the face of Onimi losing his own cool because of the war. It's my best guess at this point.

"You know, something else just occurred to me," Jacen said. "Yammosks can control the minds of all beings, right?"

"Yes," Nom Anor said. "As far as I know from the limited knowledge I had on them."

"Well, why wasn't a tactic like having yammosks give the Yuuzhan Vong's enemies, like the New Republic and Galactic Alliance, psychological torture episodes ever an option during battles?" Jacen asked.

Nom Anor looked at Jacen in shock. "If Tsavong Lah or Nas Choka or any other Yuuzhan Vong commander heard that, you would have blown their minds, Solo."

Jacen grinned.

"Oh, wait," Nom Anor said, his expression dropping. "Maybe that would have overworked the yammosks. Perhaps they'd be too divided between coordinating the Yuuzhan Vong forces and sabotaging their enemies."

"Well, keep in mind, though," Jacen said, "by the end of the war, Yuuzhan Vong pilots were trained to fly on their own, without yammosk aid, right?"

Again, Nom Anor's eyebrows were widened. "Which would leave the yammosks all but able to concentrate on overriding the minds of the Yuuzhan Vong's enemies."

Jacen's grin returned. "But anyway, assuming that Onimi's shortcomings stemmed from him not being such a good tactician, I don't know how he would have gone about killing everything in existence, although I do think that there was a good reason that I had to become one with the Force to kill him."

"You have any theories about how Onimi could have gone about killing everyone?" Nom Anor asked.

"One, which is the only one that would make sense to me, all things considered," Jacen said. "You remember how Vergere liked to concoct chemical compounds from her tears?"

"Yes."

"Well, Onimi could do the same, though they were more toxic compounds that he could excrete through sweat, saliva, blood, tears, et cetera," Jacen said. "Of course, I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibility that he could have modified those compounds to be nourishing."

"Nourishing?" Nom Anor asked. "To what? Feed himself?"

"Not just himself," Jacen said, "but probably also his escape craft; he could power his dovin basals so that his ship could go anywhere without tiring itself, produce unlimited voids, or maybe not even that; he could have probably hardened his ship's already-reinforced yorik coral to be completely invulnerable to the point that only the destruction of the universe itself would have been able to destroy it."

"Destruction of the universe itself could have broke through it?" Nom Anor asked.

"Well, maybe that's just an exaggeration," Jacen said. "Probably a planet-buster like a Death Star or Sun Crusher would have gotten through to it. But even if it had sustained damage, I'd think that Onimi would have been able to send chemical compounds to heal his ship and possibly reinforce it even further. I bet that he could even create enough plasma to destroy his enemies."

"Are you really sure he could have concocted those compounds?" Nom Anor asked. "It sounds like he only knew how to create detrimental concoctions, just as Vergere made only medicinal compounds."

"Well, Vergere was only capable of producing emollients and healing compounds," Jacen said. "But in my fight with Onimi, I could sense that he could create the more complex, more lethal compounds that would have required more effort to keep them from killing himself. And if he could do that, he could certainly create nourishing and healing compounds. Vergere was like a mere adept compared to him."

"Interesting," Nom Anor said. "But if Onimi didn't have tactical intelligence, as you say, how do you know he could have been smart enough to reinforce his reinforced bunker ship?"

"I just think it might have been a possibility," Jacen said with a shrug. "Maybe he would have been placed in a desperate situation, such as being fired by a whole group of GA warships, that would have prompted him to think up of hardening his ship on the spot."

"If he had done that out of desperation," Nom Anor said, "then I wonder why he didn't just think of taking over the Shamed Ones at that sacrifice."

"Different circumstances, maybe?" Jacen asked. "You did point out that he was biologically linked, or 'wedded,' to that ship. Maybe he could have felt its pain and did everything in his power to heal it and harden it."

"In the middle of a battle?" Nom Anor asked. "I get it if it were after a confrontation, but amidst it?"

"Well, let's say he managed to kill me, you, and my family, and Aunt Mara senses my death and my family's," Jacen said. "She would probably have let the GA forces know about this and have them all try to destroy that bunker ship; you know, not so much out of vengeance, per se, but just to finally end the war. Onimi would still have Yuuzhan Vong forces defending him, thinking he's Shimrra. So whatever hits the bunker ship takes, he can heal up. And hardening it might be something he could think of in between attacks and defenses from GA and Yuuzhan Vong forces respectively."

"I don't know if the Yuuzhan Vong forces would have been so volatile in trying to defend Shimrra, surprisingly," Nom Anor said. "From what I heard, even a relative realist such as Nas Choka believed in the god-like invincibility of the Supreme Overlord; that if the Yuuzhan Vong, as a people, were to die, the Supreme Overlord would be the last to die. So while Choka may have loaned some forces to defend the bunker ship, I doubt he would have been too worried in defending Shimrra, even if it was really Onimi. And don't ask me as to why he would need a reinforced bunker if the Yuuzhan Vong believed in Shimrra's invincibility; it's one of those things that religious extremists, like most of my people, do not question."

"Well, in the face of such an attack," Jacen said, "wouldn't Choka think that by having all of his warriors defend Shimrra to the last warrior, only then would Shimrra be the last to die? Or, even if that weren't to happen, I guess Onimi could contact Choka, rearrange the villip contact so that he appeared to be Shimrra - and even influence Choka's mind in case the warmaster would have been suspicious as to whether or not this was Shimrra, like if Onimi wasn't exactly acting like the Supreme Overlord - and tell him to defend the bunker ship at all costs. It would be within Onimi's limited imagination."

"Well, that would assume that Onimi was even controlling the warriors at the botched sacrifice to begin with," Nom Anor said. "For all we know, he could have just panicked or something. Which makes me wonder all the more if Onimi could have really been a threat if that happened and he just lost control of Shimrra like that; so maybe he wouldn't have even contacted Choka to ask for defense while being harried."

"Even if the Yuuzhan Vong wouldn't have been actively defending the bunker," Jacen argued, "they still would be fighting the GA ships attacking it. I doubt they would have just sat back and watched, at any rate. And it's possible that Onimi could have gotten the idea in his head to go and take control of at least some of the Yuuzhan Vong forces in his more immediate vicinity; and who knows what could have happened from there? My guess: him managing to defeat the GA forces that justified me achieving oneness with the Force in order to defeat him."

"But here's yet another question," Nom Anor said. "What about the present yammosk jammers still in the battle? Wouldn't they have affected Onimi's powers to influence the minds of the Yuuzhan Vong there? Come to think of it, even if he had managed to think beyond controlling them, he still wouldn't be able to influence the minds of the GA forces there."

"Well, again, even if Onimi couldn't control the Yuuzhan Vong forces nearby because of whatever yammosk jammers there happen to be," Jacen said, "you still have the fact that the Yuuzhan Vong forces themselves will still fight the GA forces nevertheless. And maybe, just maybe, Onimi could have found a reprieve within the battle to have healed his ship and enhanced it to invincible standards, after piloting it away and fighting off some GA ships himself, of course; and even with all the hits he might take, he'll still have a pretty damn reinforced bunker that will spare him from a great many hits, giving him that much of an advantage. And when that occurs, after he's healed and hardened his ships and all, he could go about with destroying the interdictors that have the jammers himself, most likely by tracing their gravitic fields with his Force-abilities back to their sources."

"I thought it was impossible to sense things that were non-living through the Force, such as droids," Nom Anor pointed out.

"Yes, but something like gravitic modulation," Jacen said, "can be sensed through the Force, especially since it can be detected by starship sensors and even from simple feeling."

"You can detect a droid by eyes and the other senses, along with some non-lifesign readings," Nom Anor said. "Again, Onimi's telepathic abilities were based on yammosk DNA, and therefore, so were his Force powers, so his powers might not even work then."

"Well, they probably could have," Jacen said. "He could have lucked out and ended up in an area that wasn't yammosk-jammed, which he might have sensed just as a Jedi could detect a Yuuzhan Vong without a Force presence. Onimi probably could have boarded a ship like Choka's flagship or any other remaining Yuuzhan Vong capital vessel for refuge for healing and to communicate with other commanders, via manipulated villip making him seem like Shimrra, combined with telepathic abilities to influence those he's communicating with further, to take out the jamming interdictors. This would eventually be passed onto Choka, assuming Onimi had to board another ship that wasn't in a jamming zone, and he could have gone about his plans."

"While it may sound like a longshot and rely on a lot of variables to occur in the battle, I think that's what could have happened to justify me needing the Force to defeat Onimi. Otherwise, while it may have been a tragic end to the war to have lost the Solo family and Luke Skywalker at the end of the war, the galaxy could have still gone on after we were gone."

"And even if the Jedi Order were to fall into darkness," Nom Anor followed, "such as your aunt taking revenge, they still could have healed later, just as when your uncle revived the Jedi Order itself."

"I think so, too," Jacen said.

Nom Anor nodded, conceding Jacen's point. "Very well, I can see your point." Then, after a moment, Nom Anor asked, "Can you tell me what being one with the Force is like?"

"Why would you wanna know?" Jacen countered. "You said you hated the Force for all that it was responsible, through the actions of the Jedi, that led to your misfortune throughout the war. I still remember that before you lied to my family and said you'd rather die with Onimi than live to see the postwar galaxy."

"Even so," Nom Anor said, "I'd still be interested to know. After all, you said it yourself; it allows us to pass the time."

"Fine," Jacen said. "Well... the best I could describe it is... Have you ever done drugs, Nommy?"

"What, and become an addict unable to go on living without whatever substance that I oh so desperately need?" Nom Anor retorted. "No, I have never done it. But I am familiar enough through secondhand accounts, particularly through some of my pirate members, who have told me what it was like. They say that it feels like 'they are the galaxy' and other variations of that type of euphoric hyperbole."

"Well, while I haven't done drugs myself," Jacen said, "at least not any hard ones during my sojourn, the experience that I felt in becoming one with the Force during my battle with Onimi... it was like I became the Force itself. And I'm pretty sure I was, for a brief moment."

"I see," Nom Anor said in a mildly interested tone.

Yet another awkward moment passed between them before it was Nom Anor who asked, "So what drugs did you do on your sojourn."

"Just one type," Jacen answered. "It's called marijuana. It's grown on worlds like Dantooine and even on the Forest Moon of Endor."

"What does it do?"

"It gives you, or at least humans, this feeling of mild euphoria; you feel a little weary, a little tired, and you get quite hungry. Sometimes, you'll even eat bizarre types of food and weird food combinations. That all depends on how much you take, of course. But no matter how much I've taken, it doesn't do an iota of justice compared to what I felt when I was one with the Force."

"Any side effects to this marijuana?" Nom Anor asked.

"Not... really," Jacen answered hesitantly. "There are arguments by some scientists that it decreases your intelligence - killing brain cells faster and all - but other scientists have said that it doesn't do that, so I really don't know. I haven't felt much different between when I smoke weed - that's a nickname for marijuana, by the way - and when I'm sober. One thing most scientists do agree on is that marijuana's a lot less harmful to the brain and body than alcohol; so, if anything, my dad and his buddies from the Rebellion are doing more damage to their alcohol drinking Corellian brandy than if they just smoked a little weed."

"Hmm," Nom Anor muttered. "That doesn't sound too bad, actually. A drug that causes no real harm to the user; that sounds like it would be incredibly profitable to a mainstream market."

"I agree," Jacen said. "Of course, marijuana's effects have only been seen in species like humans, Bothans, Twi'leks, and probably a few others I can name off the top of my head. I'm not sure what it'll do to a Yuuzhan Vong, though."

Nom Anor looked at him. "You are offering me marijuana?"

Jacen nodded. "Provided that I can be sure that it won't poison you or something."

"Oh, what would you really care?" Nom Anor countered. "You don't even really want me alive; you're just protecting me because of your moral obligation to see that I'm judged in a fair trial."

"Maybe," Jacen said. "But if it doesn't kill you, it can probably help you relax."

"Relax?" Nom Anor countered. "You mean while we're being hunted down by the True Victory Party? If we're too high, we won't be alert enough to react in time to defend ourselves, or run away."

Jacen waved the argument away. "I can just create a counteragent to that or something."

"Counteragent?" Nom Anor asked. "You mean you can manipulate the molecules in your body to create compounds, too?"

Jacen nodded with a grin. "it's how I saved my uncle from the poison from Shimrra's amphistaff, as a matter of fact."

Nom Anor's eyebrows were raised in understanding. "So that's how he survived." He then looked at Jacen in incredulous curiosity. "Is there anything you can't do?"

"Maybe make more than one teleportation in a shorter time gap," Jacen said sardonically.

"Ah, yes," Nom Anor agreed with a nod.

"And besides, I can probably stop the marijuana taking effect on your body in case it is toxic to you and your species," Jacen said. "Even cook up a healing agent to get you back to health. And I can even make sure that I won't get too high that I'm incapable of helping you, okay?"

Nom Anor shrugged. "My life is in your hands, then."

Then Jacen lifted his hands to chest level and concentrated. In moments, molecules came together to form a green, fungal-like substance that Jacen held in the air with the Force. With a free hand, he used the Force to call forth two pieces of paper that were lying on the ground on the other side of the room; once he brought them to him, he unleashed some tears that dropped upon the papers. But instead of weakening their structures, all the dirt and dust that had covered them disappeared.

"Here, keep this on your lap," Jacen said as he placed the lump of marijuana on Nom Anor's thighs. He then picked up the papers, ripped them up into nice little pieces, and then gave one of the pieces to Nom Anor.

"Now watch what I do," Jacen said as he took some of the marijuana, placed it on the paper, and then rolled the paper up. Once it was tightly packed up, Jacen snapped the thumb and forefinger of his left hand beneath the end of the joint that was pointing away from his mouth, and a brief flame appeared that lit that end.

"I doubt I can do that last part," Nom Anor commented. "Actually, I don't think I can even roll up the paper." He held up his dead artificial hand. "You broke this, remember?"

"I'll do the fire for you," Jacen said. "And let me fix that up. You do the rest." He reached over with one hand and sent a bolt of Electric Judgement through Nom Anor's artificial hand, allowing it to come alive again. "It's at normal strength, by the way. Come on, make your own joint."

Nom Anor promptly repeated what Jacen did, then let the Jedi light up the opposing end of the joint with a finger-flame.

Then the two of them inhaled their joints.

Sometime later, they were both baked out of their minds, lounging lazily on the couch in euphoric bliss.

"Hey, man," Jacen said, "you okay? You're not poisoning or anything?"

Nom Anor laughed for no other reason than that he was high. "No, I'm fine. I'm fine. You?"

"Not gettin' any freakouts yet," Jacen said.

Nom Anor's expression then became slightly concerned. "Freakouts? What freakouts?"

Jacen looked at the Yuuzhan Vong dumbly before he said, "Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that one possible side effect to smokin' weed is that you may have a little freakout for no reason. This has occurred between members of the species that have done this before. All you need to know, though, bro, is that you don't have to stay in this room; you have to stay in this apartment, but you don't have to stay in this room."

Nom Anor's eyes widened. "That's the thing, man. I don't think I can stay in this apartment." He then began to hyperventilate, wheezing uncontrollably from where he sat.

Jacen then flattened the palm of his right hand and began creating the counteragent that would reduce the psychological effects that were taking their toll on Nom Anor.

"It's like a prison in here, man!" Nom Anor exclaimed. "Like I'm back in Onimi's society! Where I'm not free and I can't do anything without having two eyes in the back of my head! It's like the walls are closing in on me, Jacen! Stop the walls from closing in! Stop everyone else from trying to kill me!"

"Nommy, calm down, calm down," Jacen said as he leveled the hand containing the cupped marijuana counteragent. "Just drink this. The walls will stop closing in when you do."

Without hesitation, Nom Anor grabbed both hands against Jacen's and gulped down the counteragent liquid. Moments after drinking it, he relaxed back on the couch, lounging again.

"Okay," he said. "I think I'm feeling better again. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Jacen replied.

"And I also mean that for sparing my life and saving it from the Bothans," Nom Anor said sincerely.

Jacen looked at the Yuuzhan Vong with pleasant surprise before he promptly returned to his mild euphoria.


	11. Chapter 11

When Jacen awoke from his marijuana-induced slumber, he checked his wrist chrono; it was time now.

He nudged Nom Anor awake. "Hey, it's time to go," he told the woozy Yuuzhan Vong.

"About time," Nom Anor muttered.

And with a wave of his hands, Jacen disappeared with his charge, and they just as quickly reappeared in a corridor in the Jedi Temple. A few apprentices and Knights who were passing by were startled not only at their sudden and inexplicable appearance, but also at the sight of a Yuuzhan Vong in their midst.

"Everyone, calm down," Jacen said as he waved his arms again, only to ward off any attacking Jedi instead of committing another Aing-Tii teleportation - which, of course, he wouldn't be able to do for another few hours, at least. "This Yuuzhan Vong is my prisoner. You have nothing to worry about."

Before anyone else could say or do anything in response, Mara appeared at the end of the hallway, facing Jacen and Nom Anor amidst the crowd. She briskly walked toward them, glaring at Nom Anor hatefully, while he did the same to her, albeit more fearfully.

"Jacen," she said, now shifting her attention to her nephew. "Will you be taking him to one of the Temple's cells?" She indicated Nom Anor with a nod but without looking at him.

"I will," Jacen answered. "But we still have to worry about the True Victory Party coming after him."

"Of course we do," Mara replied reluctantly. Her tone then became more objective. "We contacted DSF and let them know about the Orbital Control officer who sent you into that trap in the slum district." She was referring to the abbreviation for the Denon Security Force. "He was secretly a member of the TVP."

"I figured that," Jacen said. "Did they get anything out of him?"

"Only that he and his fellow party members want to kill Nom Anor to further wipe out the Yuuzhan Vong," Mara said. "So nothing unusual."

"He didn't say anything about the leadership?" Jacen asked. "Who sent those assassins after Nom Anor and me?"

"Not yet, anyway," Mara said. "We just sent Kyp down to help the interrogation process."

"Why would the Galactic Alliance help this party flourish?" Nom Anor asked, piping in. "The government has made its peace with my species. They should not be perpetuating the Bothans' genocidal hatred of my people after the war."

"Neither the GA nor the Jedi are doing that," Mara said, her angry tone barely restrained as she spoke to Nom Anor. "The TVP was outlawed by this government after the war ended; in case you didn't keep up, Bothawui's planetary government reluctantly but respectfully rescinded its vow of _ar'krai_ against your kind, with Admiral Kre'fey having helped convince his people's government that maintaining this course was futile and unnecessary. These are just extremists who deny that this outlawing has ever happened."

"Well, that just makes me feel _so_ much safer," Nom Anor replied sarcastically.

Mara's nostrils flared. "Do you have any idea-"

"Aunt Mara, Aunt Mara, calm down," Jacen said, interposing himself between his aunt and Nom Anor. "You don't wanna do this."

"Oh, but I do, Jacen, I do," she said, looking past her nephew's shoulder to glare at Nom Anor again. But then she looked back at Jacen and said, "Unfortunately, though, what I want goes against the principles of the Jedi. So get him out of my sight before I go against those principles and snap his neck."

Without saying a word, Jacen began leading Nom Anor down the corridor, past the confused and angry-looking Jedi, and headed for the turbolift that would take them down to the Temple's lower levels.

"You know, I have to ask," Nom Anor said as they headed down. "This teleportation technique of yours; since it comes from the Force, how can it affect me, someone who isn't connected with the Force?"

"It's somewhat complicated, but I'll try to explain the best I can," Jacen said. "You see, given my connection to your people, what with my Vong- uh, Yuuzhan Vongsense and the telepathic connection I established with the World Brain back on Coruscant, it sort of acts like a bridge between the Force and the people who've yet to achieve the Force back on Zonama Sekot."

"But I thought it was only like a switch, for you, between the Force and your abilities to perceive my people," Nom Anor pointed out as the doors opened before them.

"Well, like I said, it's a bit more complicated, but I can hazard a guess if you want," Jacen said as they stepped out to the cell block of the Temple.

"Hazard away," Nom Anor said as he was herded by Jacen.

"Given my time learning different techniques from different Force sects," Jacen explained, "and possibly because of the level of oneness I achieved during my fight against Onimi, I think I may have been able to expand my Force-senses so that they can, in a way, intertwine with my powers when it comes to your people. That, and the fact that your people still have a chance at reclaiming the Force back on Zonama. I remember, in the weeks after the war, that Uncle Luke and I sensed some flickers of a Force-presence in the likes of Harrar and Nas Choka because of what Sekot was doing."

"Hmm." That was all Nom Anor had said on that.

As Jacen guided the reluctant Nom Anor toward an empty cell, waved him in, and locked the door behind the Yuuzhan Vong, he couldn't help but wonder if the one-eyed alien's hatred of the Force was only because he couldn't achieve it. If it weren't for Jacen's lingering resentment against the alien, he would actually feel sorry for him, even with their time together in the slum district.

After he walked away and returned to the ground level of the Temple, he was met by Mara again.

"Have you been smoking marijuana, Jacen?" she asked. "With Nom Anor?"

Jacen froze. Like most, if not all, illegal drugs, marijuana wasn't a drug that most adults, particularly older ones like Mara, approved of.

"How did you know?" Jacen asked.

"I could smell it off both of you," she answered.

_Oh, yeah_, Jacen thought. _Probably should have created a compound that could have gotten rid of the stink before I came here_.

"I didn't want to bring it up because I could barely stand being around Nom Anor," Mara continued. "But now let's talk about it."

Inwardly, Jacen grimaced, prepared for a verbal beatdown from his aunt.

"Don't let your uncle, and definitely not your parents, find out about this," Mara finally said.

Jacen relaxed, albeit with some confusion. "What?"

"I've had some weed in my time, Jacen," Mara said. "And I know that unlike glitterstim or anything like that, it's not very harmful. It is quite relaxing, I'll agree. But I stopped that by the time I got together with your uncle; he and your parents, even your father for all he's done before he joined the Rebellion, are fairly strict. And I think your dad might kill you for doing weed, considering all the spice he's smuggled."

"So you won't tell Uncle Luke, or Mom and Dad?" Jacen asked.

"I won't," Mara said. "Your secret is safe with me. But keep in mind, if you get caught by any of them, you could take me down with you. So you owe me one."

"I thought it was two, since I destroyed the _Shadow_'s turbolasers," Jacen pointed out.

"You saved your uncle from the venom in Shimrra's amphistaff," Mara countered. "So when you destroyed my turbolasers, we were even. Now you owe me one."

"What if I told you I wouldn't implicate you in keeping my secret?" Jacen asked.

"Your uncle and parents might still find out anyway," Mara said. "So you're not getting off that easy."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jacen said.

"By the way, why were you smoking weed with Nom Anor, of all people?" Mara asked.

"We needed to pass the time and relax from the Bothans hunting us," Jacen said. "It seemed as good an idea as any to make some and smoke it."

Mara's eyebrows lowered in confusion. "Wait, what do you mean make some? You communicated through our Force-connection that you and Nom Anor were hiding out in an abandoned apartment. What did you make it with? And in so short a time, too?"

"Hey, you pointed out that I saved Uncle Luke from Shimrra's amphistaff," Jacen said. "You think I didn't grow my abilities in making chemicals with the Force since then? I had five to six years to get better at it. It kills a lot of travel time, let me tell ya."

Mara was silent for a moment as she stared back at Jacen in stunned amazement. "Can you show me what you can do?"

Jacen shrugged. "What do you want me to make?"

"Umm..." Mara trailed off as she thought about it. "How about some blue milk?"

"I'll need to have a cup to hold the contents," Jacen pointed out.

"I can go get one," Mara said.

"No, allow me to make one first," Jacen said.

He then placed his hands before his chest and concentrated as he began to secrete specialized chemicals that came out through the sweat in his palms. Then, levitating those chemicals with the Force before him and Mara, they began to accumulate at such an accelerated rate that they formed a perfectly-sculpted glass container that Jacen picked from the air.

Next, with the hand not holding the glass, he placed his free palm over the entrance of the container and allowed more sweat to drip through, which gradually transformed into blue milk. It filled the glass about halfway to the top.

"Want it?" he offered to his aunt.

Mara took the glass from her nephew and drank the cool, sweet liquid in two gulps.

"It's delicious!" Mara said in surprise. "Tastes just like the stuff your Uncle Luke says comes straight from Tatooine."

"It certainly saves money when I want some," Jacen said with a grin.

"Jacen, this... This is Master-level use of the Force," Mara said. "You've certainly come a long way from what Vergere taught you."

"I'm flattered," Jacen said modestly.

"No, Jacen, don't just wave this away," Mara said. "With an ability like this, you could become a Master in the Council!"

"Oh, no, I wouldn't wanna become a Master, Aunt Mara," Jacen said. "That would require me to take some level of responsibility for the whole of the Jedi Order. No, I want to continue my own quest to further my knowledge and abilities of the Force. And occasionally help others like you and Raynar on the side."

"Jacen, with power like this," Mara said as she waved to the cup, "you have to adopt a great amount of responsibility for the Jedi! You could be one of its most powerful members! You were the one who helped the Order adopt the Unifying Force, after all. Whether you become a Master or not, you still bear responsibility for the Jedi."

Jacen looked at his feet before looking back up at his aunt meekly. "But Uncle Luke said that all Jedi had to pursue what they think is best for them. I don't think being a Master will be best for me. I don't want this, Aunt Mara. You, Uncle Luke, and the other Masters on the Council; you're all doing a great job of running the Order, even if you have your doubts about the Unifying Force."

"Then maybe you can help vanquish those doubts, Jacen," Mara said. "If you have a place on the Masters' Council, you can show us, and by extension the rest of the Order, how we can better implement the Unifying Force in our decisions; how we can better balance the inner light and darkness that exists inside of all of us. You made a good argument to me, I'll say, so why don't you continue that for all of us?"

Jacen made a wry expression. "Maybe if I think you, Uncle Luke, and the others aren't doing what's best for the Order. But so far, you're all doing well."

"So far, maybe," Mara agreed. "But like you said, we still have our doubts about it. We may go back to the Living Force theory that was folly to follow."

"It wasn't complete folly," Jacen said. "It had its flaws like everything else. Even the Unifying Force has its flaws; after all, as you and Uncle Luke argued, not every Jedi will be able to keep the inner light and darkness balanced inside. Perhaps that will be the downfall of this Order one day, just as the Living Force was to Yoda's."

Mara sighed. "Well, if you ever want a position, I'll recommend you to your uncle. I'm sure he'll approve of you."

"Thanks, Aunt Mara, although I don't think it'll be necessary."

Before Mara could respond, her commlink beeped. She answered it. "Skywalker here."

"Mara, it's Kyp. I got a lead out of the TVP Orbital Control officer; I know where to find their primary base here on Denon."

"Where?" Mara asked.

.

On the opposite side of Denon, a grand firefight was being waged. All throughout the industrial block that they inhabited, the True Victory Party Bothans defended their main base with atmospheric combat vessels and turbolasers that were mounted on the roofs of the buildings they hid out in. Against them, a large contingent of DSF officers hid behind the buildings and obstacles that were opposite of the TVP's base block all around, firing back from their ground defensive positions and their armored and armed police hovercruisers.

It wasn't long into the battle when the _Jade Shadow_, still missing its turbolaser banks, flew into the battle with Kyp's Dozen in the back, though not as invisible given the daytime conditions that their StealthXs flew in.

In the _Shadow_'s cockpit, Jacen sat in the copilot seat as Mara piloted her ship down toward the confrontation.

"I can get there from here," Jacen said once the ship got into a certain range. "I'll get their leader."

"How do you know if Trusk Fey'lya is here?" Mara asked. Fey'lya was the estranged nephew of Borsk Fey'lya, and who Kyp told Jacen and Mara was the leader of the TVP. "You don't know what he feels like through the Force."

"And there you were commending me on my abilities," Jacen said.

Mara looked at him in confusion, but didn't ask for her nephew to elaborate as he closed his eyes in concentration, whatever he was doing, Mara thought, she thought it'd be best if she didn't interrupt it, especially if it would help catch Fey'lya.

When Jacen flashed open his eyes, he looked at his aunt and explained, "Okay, I know where he is now. He's deep in that building there." He pointed in the direction of the central building below.

"How do you know?" Mara asked.

"Simple," Jacen said. "I was around Borsk Fey'lya enough to get a good enough read on his Force-presence. His nephew's presence feels similar only in terms of biology. Lucky enough they're related, because if not, we'd have a harder time looking for the TVP's leader."

"So I guess there are some things that even the great Jacen Solo can't do, after all," Mara said with a grin.

"Eh, even if they weren't related," Jacen said, "I would have just gone and looked for him in there the old-fashioned way, just by looking for anyone who looked like him."

"Makes sense to me," Mara said as Jacen unbuckled his safety harness and headed to the back of the _Shadow_.

Once he reached the boarding ramp, it lowered thanks to Mara activating it. And with his lightsaber in hand and active, Jacen leaped out and began a controlled descent down toward the central TVP building. He angled himself to avoid all of the ships and vehicles - TVP and DSF alike - and their respective projectiles from hitting him. Partway through his descent, he was fired upon by the Bothans manning the three roof-mounted turbolasers there; with some Force-aid, he used his lightsaber to bat the lasers back down upon the weapons, blowing them into oblivion. The three Bothans, who tried to run away once they saw the lasers coming back, were fried from the proximity of the explosions.

When Jacen was meters away from the roof, he extended both hands out and downward and unleashed a Force-wave that blew a chunk of roof down through the building. He continued to use it to punch through all of the lower levels until it reached the basement. Then, when he landed in the basement, he cushioned his landing with the Force that the impact sent a giant wave that blew everything in the room he was now in all around, leaving the place a total mess.

Jacen then stood up from his crouch and looked around at the downed and stunned Bothans, which included Trusk Fey'lya at the other end of the room. Not a single one of them had died in his descent.

Which was just fine for him.

When the Bothans all recovered, and Fey'lya was the first to stand up and spot Jacen, he pointed at the Jedi and hollered, "Kill that Vong-lover!"

And just like that, Jacen began whirling his green blade at a super-fast rate to deflect all the laser bolts back at their shooters and weapons. This technique, Jacen remembered, was a lightsaber form he learned from the Force-users of Haruun Kal called Vaapad, a technique that had been created by the legendary Jedi Master Mace Windu of the Clone Wars himself. While not originally created on Haruun Kal, the Force-sensitive native inhabitants would later learn the technique following the Clone Wars and the death of Master Windu, along with the fall of Yoda's Order.

And it took a great deal in Jacen to temper the inner darkness in him - something that Vaapad was dangerously known for implementing - with his inner light; he did this by making sure that none of the Bothans in the room would die.

Instead, almost all of the TVP members had ended up with destroyed blasters and serious laser and lightsaber wounds, none of which were immediately life-threatening or included any dismemberment. In the end, Jacen made sure that the wounds they suffered could be easily treated in the span of a few hours via a prison hospital.

When Jacen ceased his use of Vaapad then, there was only one TVP member he had to face: its leader, Trusk Fey'lya.

The brown-furred Bothan, who bore a very close resemblance to his late uncle, growled at Jacen before he leveled his blaster up at the Jedi Knight. But before he could fire, Jacen used the Force to pull the gun out of Fey'lya's hand and slashed his lightsaber through it, letting the two blaster pieces clatter to the floor harmlessly.

Fey'lya then let out a primal scream that was more in keeping with the animals that his species evolved from than that of a humanoid. "How could you _dare_ defend _any_ member of a species that tortured you, never mind led to the death of my great uncle, Solo?!"

"Because I feel that it's the right thing to do, and I have also learned a great deal from them, Fey'lya. When you're in prison, you should learn to let go of your hatred of the Yuuzhan Vong. Otherwise, you will live a life full of immense sorrow and intense pain."

Instead of replying with words, Fey'lya roared again and rushed Jacen, careless of the still-blazing lightsaber that the Jedi held in his hand. But Jacen deactivated his weapon, promptly hooked it back on his belt, and made a super-fast punch against Fey'lya's snout that quickly knocked the Bothan unconscious.


	12. Chapter 12

Jacen collected Fey'lya's unconscious body by slinging the Bothan over his shoulder. Then the Jedi Knight began a series of leaps up through the holes in the floors above that he had made minutes earlier. Once he reached the roof, the _Jade Shadow_ was hovering nearby with its ramp extended to Jacen.

The Jedi Knight ran to the end of the roof and leaped up and onto the ramp, where he climbed back even as the _Shadow_ began its ascension over the dying battle.

After placing Fey'lya in the _Shadow_'s cell, Jacen returned to the ship's cockpit and sat back in the copilot seat. "Got him," he told his aunt.

Mara nodded and then activated the comm console. "Attention, DSF and True Victory Party; we have Trusk Fey'lya. To the TVP, I'd advise that you surrender; your fight has been in vain from the beginning just as it is now."

And just like that, the TVP starfighters disengaged from their dogfights and set down on the roofs of the base block buildings. Meanwhile, the Bothans manning the roof-mounted turbolasers stepped away from the weapons and raised their hands. Once the DSF officers saw what was going on, they stopped firing their own weapons - whether they were on the ground or in the air - and began to approach the surviving TVP Bothans with their weapons trained on them.

After seeing this through the _Shadow_'s forward viewport, Jacen and Mara looked at each other and grinned triumphantly.

.

Following the capture of the TVP at their primary base, it was thus considered safe enough for Nom Anor's arraignment to take place in a Galactic Alliance court. A few days later, after the rest of the TVP members across Denon were rounded up and arrested, thanks to their already-arrested brethren having implicated them as members, Nom Anor's actual trial took place.

Naturally, he was judged guilty by the jury by the end of the trial that took place in just over an hour

The Caamasi judge, Her Honor Hesoul Kl'ana, banged her mallet against her table and announced, "Nom Anor, you have been found guilty of perpetrating war crimes during the Yuuzhan Vong War and your subsequent pirate activities since then. Your sentencing would be death by killtab."

The audience behind Nom Anor cheered, and Jacen noticed that his friends and family - with the exception of Jaina, who was still in the Chiss Ascendancy - also seemed glad. Obviously, Mara could barely restrain a victorious smile, and even Uncle Luke looked a bit more than content.

Jacen himself, however, even with the resentment he held against Nom Anor - and maybe because of the relatively friendly time he spent with him - felt somewhat... livid.

"Order in the court!" Kl'ana called, immediately silencing the crowd. "Now I am willing to show leniency provided that you identify all of the lieutenants and underlings who had worked for your pirating organization; or at least all those who you know of and/or who you think or know are still alive."

The entire court remained silent.

"May I ask, Your Honor," Nom Anor said, "what will my sentencing be if I comply?"

"You will be sent by a Jedi decided by both Master Luke Skywalker and myself," Kl'ana answered, "to be with your people on Zonama Sekot."

"I will comply then," Nom Anor said without hesitation. He then recited the names of his lieutenants and underlings that came off to the top of his head in under a minute. When he was done, he said, "That's all who I can name."

"That will be sufficient," Kl'ana said. She then looked at Luke. "Master Skywalker, which Jedi do you wish to have take Nom Anor to Zonama Sekot?"

"I nominate my nephew, Jacen Solo, to do so, Your Honor," Luke said.

"Jedi Solo," Kl'ana said, "do you agree to do this?"

"I do, Your Honor," Jacen promptly answered.

"Then it's settled," Kl'ana said. "This trial is adjourned." She banged her mallet again, much to the dismayed and impotent objections of the crowd as Kl'ana left the courtroom.

.

Sometime later, Jacen led a stuncuffed Nom Anor up the boarding ramp of the _Solo Quest_ - which had been towed from that slum district elsewhere on Denon and repaired in a GA repair facility - and only took the stuncuffs off when the door to the guest cabin was opened. The Yuuzhan Vong didn't resist as he simply walked into the room and Jacen closed and locked the door from the outside.

Minutes later, the _Quest_ was hovering off the deck of the private GA hangar bay that the ship had been placed in after her repairs. Then Jacen turned it around and carefully piloted it out through the exit before flying the _Quest_ up into Denon's skies. A few more minutes after that, the ship was out of Denon's gravity well and into hyperspace for the Unknown Regions.

As soon as the _Quest_ was in hyperspace, Jacen opened the door to the guest cabin, where he found Nom Anor lying on his bed with his hands behind his head. The Yuuzhan Vong looked at the Jedi Knight in curiosity.

"Wanna play some holochess?" Jacen asked.

Nom Anor sat up on the edge of the bed. "Only if you don't cheat by using your Yuuzhan Vongsense to read my mind."

"This coming from you?" Jacen countered sardonically.

Nom Anor scowled, but nevertheless pushed himself off the bed and walked over to join Jacen.

.

"Ha!" Nom Anor exclaimed as soon as the last of Jacen's holochess monsters was killed. The Yuuzhan Vong himself had only three monsters left. "I won!"

"I would say you had cheated," Jacen said, "but I used my ability to perceive your people just to make sure you weren't making any underhanded moves."

"Oh, no, I played fair and square," Nom Anor said. "And I am honestly glad that you did, too.

"You know, something about your abilities came up on my mind," Nom Anor continued. "You can create substances from your surroundings and from your own body's components, correct?"

"Correct," Jacen confirmed.

"If you were making something from yourself," Nom Anor said, "wouldn't that be dangerous to your health? I imagine it would cause a serious imbalance to your homeostasis."

"When I was still learning to master this ability, I did have to drink plenty of fluids after committing an act like this," Jacen affirmed.

"But then?"

"Well, I learned how Onimi could do this without endangering his own body to it: I had to, at the same time I was creating compounds from myself, create compounds that would replenish my own health."

"That sounds incredibly tricky," Nom Anor observed.

"Oh, it was, at first," Jacen admitted. "But eventually, it became so easy that it was second nature. Sometimes, I don't even think about creating new compounds in me to replenish my health while creating other compounds to create other substances."

"Your body sounds more like a living chemical compound factory than that of a normal human being's at this point," Nom Anor said, impressed.

"I know," Jacen said with a self-congratulatory smile. "I did have five to six years to practice, and quite a bit of travel time between going between Force sects to master this art, after all."

"I suppose that makes sense," Nom Anor admitted. "Say, are you able to create more solid substances from your body's components, out of curiosity?"

"I was able to create a glass container for Aunt Mara, just to show off," Jacen said. "I mean, sure, it was unnecessary and useless, but, hey, I kind of like to self-indulge a bit. As you may have already known, I was a bit of a pudgy kid around the time of the Black Fleet Crisis."

"So I have heard," Nom Anor said. "But couldn't you have made the glass container from sand or stone or anything like that?"

"I could have," Jacen said. "I could have even made the sand and stone out of the molecules in the air. But that would have taken longer, and it wouldn't have been as fun or challenging." He grinned again.

"Hey, since I know that you and Aunt Mara hate each other," Jacen continued, "you wanna know something really crazy?"

"About your aunt?" Nom Anor asked. "Why would you slander an elder relative to one of her greatest enemies, one whom you have fought before?"

"I just think it's kinda funny, is all," Jacen said. "You see, after I made that glass, I also gave her some blue milk that I literally made out of my own sweat."

"And she drank it?" Nom Anor asked in amazement.

"She did," Jacen answered with a playful smile.

"And _she_ didn't find anything weird or disgusting about this?" Nom Anor inquired.

"Hey, she drank it willingly, so I guess she didn't," Jacen said. "And you know, I was actually wondering if she would do it. I was really surprised when she did so."

"Jacen, if you gave _me_ some blue milk made of your own sweat, I don't care if it's chemically clean, I'm not drinking anything made of your sweat," Nom Anor said. "Just that knowledge would probably make me throw up the blue milk."

"Even if you were incredibly thirsty and you wouldn't drink the water I would make from my own sweat?" Jacen asked.

Nom Anor looked at him curiously. "Wouldn't you just make it from the water molecules in the air?"

"I could, but I may still wanna mess with you," Jacen said.

"You're kind of a jackass, you know," Nom Anor replied.

Jacen couldn't help but laugh at that. "Yeah, I pretty much am. I may have to work on that. But you know what the craziest thing about her drinking my sweat-made blue milk is?"

"What?"

"She thought that my abilities were so incredible that she offered me a position as a Jedi Master," Jacen said.

"And you didn't take it?"

"Well, my uncle would have to be the one to promote me, but no, I didn't. I wasn't interested. I didn't wanna have that kinda responsibility, you know."

"I guess I can understand that. With great power comes great responsibility," Nom Anor said.

"Yeah. Of course, with this great power, maybe I do have a great responsibility, after all. In either case, I don't think I'm ready for the responsibility aspect. Not yet, anyway."

"Say, wouldn't you need to train an apprentice first before you became a Master?" Nom Anor asked.

"Not anymore," Jacen answered. "It is an option for some Jedi Knights to do that if they feel they want to adhere to the more traditional views that the Old Order had."

"Which, of course, is what you don't want the New Jedi Order to do," Nom Anor concluded.

"Yeah, but remember, I'm not the one running the Order, my uncle is," Jacen reminded the Yuuzhan Vong.

"You know, not that I would actually give you any advice that might potentially help the organization that was ultimately responsible for my downfall in my society," Nom Anor said, "but wouldn't you have rather become a Master so you can help guide the Order to how you see fit?"

"That's another point Aunt Mara brought up," Jacen said. He then shrugged and sighed. "I don't know, I guess I trust my aunt, uncle, and all the other Masters on the Council to do what they and I both think is good for the Order. But you know, I did convince my aunt that the Unifying Force was the most likely correct path for the Order to follow with my abilities to create substances from basic molecules; and I even convinced my uncle, as well. So maybe I wouldn't have needed to become a Master to convince the Council of what I think needs to be done; Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara could just do that for me and lead the rest of the Council on this path."

"Well, if you think so," Nom Anor said.

"But maybe I just need a little bit more to think about it," Jacen said. "Explore the Force a little more. And since we're going back to Zonama Sekot, this might be the perfect opportunity. I haven't seen Tahiri or Tekli in a while."

"What about that scientist who helped the Jedi on missions against my people?" Nom Anor asked. "What was her name again?"

"Danni," Jacen answered. "Danni Quee."

"Danni Quee, of course," Nom Anor said. "Are you not interested in seeing her again?"

"It'll be good to see her again, too," Jacen said.

"But?"

"But what?" Jacen asked.

"It sounded like you were holding something back from me," Nom Anor said.

"No, I wasn't," Jacen countered.

"No, I think you were," Nom Anor argued calmly.

"I wasn't."

"You were," Nom Anor said with upraised eyebrows.

"_I wasn't_," Jacen emphasized.

Nom Anor grinned. "You two had a relationship that did not work out, hmm? Is that why you did not simply mention her to begin with?"

Jacen just stared back at Nom Anor for a moment before sighing in defeat. "We _almost_ had a relationship. It got close when we were out in the Unknown Regions looking for Zonama. But after we found the living world, the relationship never went anywhere. And of course, after the war, she decided to stay behind to study the planet, and I went on learning more about myself and the Force."

"I suppose you still have feelings for her?" Nom Anor inquired.

"Not that it's any of your business, but... yeah. Yeah, I kinda do. They're not strong, it's not like I'm totally smitten with her, but, you know..."

"I imagine that, if you two were to see each other again, the encounter might be a little awkward?" Nom Anor asked.

"On the contrary," Jacen replied. "We parted on surprisingly good terms. I doubt there'll be any hard feelings between us."

"Well, if you think so," Nom Anor said again.

Jacen went silent once more. "Go to your room."

"Oh, come on!" Nom Anor complained.

"Now," Jacen said, pointing to the direction of the guest cabin.

Nom Anor sighed, stood up from his seat, and headed back to his quarters in despondence.


	13. Chapter 13

The _Solo Quest_ dropped out of hyperspace into the system that harbored the living world of Zonama Sekot. The planet was orbiting a distant white star that was about 93,000,000 miles away, right in the system's habitable zone. Between Zonama and that star were two other planets - one a barren, gray rock that was too close to the sun to support any life, and the other having an atmosphere too hot to support any primitive life. Further away from Zonama's orbit of the star was a planet half its size that the _Quest_'s sensors said had an atmosphere too thin and low on oxygen to support any life.

Even further away were five gas giants, each with multiple moons that were more or less the size of Zonama itself. Three of them had noticeable asteroid rings orbiting them along with their sizable moons.

In the cockpit of the _Quest_, Jacen, in the pilot seat, and Nom Anor, in the copilot seat, paid very little mind to the layout of the system as Jacen rocketed the ship toward Zonama itself. When the _Quest_ got into range, it was hailed, and Jacen answered.

"Hello, Jacen Solo." Jacen remembered that the voice on the other end belonged to the planet's Magister, Jabitha Hal. "Sekot recognizes your presence; as well as that of Nom Anor's."

Nom Anor looked at Jacen in perplexity. "The planet can sense me? When I don't have the Force?"

Jacen shrugged. "She was able to identify Harrar without the Force. I think she'd be able to sense and recognize _you_." The emphasis on that last word was to remind the one-eyed Yuuzhan Vong of his attempted murder of the planet years earlier.

Nom Anor made a wry expression before looking away from the Jedi. Jacen, in turn, redirected his attention to the comm console. "I have come to deliver Nom Anor to Zonama; that is, if Sekot is willing to accept him after what he nearly did."

"Wait a moment," Jabitha said. After said moment passed, she stated, "Sekot is willing to take Nom Anor into the Yuuzhan Vong village of La'okio. Please wait for an unarmed shuttle to ferry him down, and you may go, Jacen."

"So much for seeing Danni Quee, huh?" Nom Anor muttered.

Jacen scowled, but nevertheless sat back and waited with Nom Anor for a Sekotan shuttle to come up and board with the _Quest_.

Once a green, curved vessel came into view from Zonama, Jacen's eyes narrowed.

"What is it?" Nom Anor asked once he took notice of the Jedi's expression.

"I can't sense a presence aboard," Jacen said, not taking his eyes away from the approaching ship.

"Perhaps it is a Yuuzhan Vong who has not yet gained the Force," Nom Anor suggested. "Switch to your senses with my people, and you may-"

"I just did," Jacen interrupted. "It isn't Yuuzhan Vong, either."

Now Nom Anor looked concerned. "That is interesting. Well, either way, we will find out soon. Do you sense any danger, or have any bad feelings about this?"

Jacen looked at his charge and shook his head. "Surprisingly, no. If there is any dangerous presence, I have the utmost faith in Sekot to let us know. Whoever or whatever this is, I doubt we need to fear it. But it still makes me wonder as to who it is."

"Well, hail the ship if you want to find out," Nom Anor pointed out.

Jacen was about to do just that when he saw that the Sekotan shuttle had just arrived and was now connecting the ships' airlocks to each other.

"Never mind then," Nom Anor said.

The two of them then stood up and headed over to the _Quest_'s airlock. They saw, through the airlock door's viewport, a space-suited figure with a tinted face-shield that obscured the being's features.

Before Jacen could unlock the airlock for the figure, the lock seemed to open by itself, and the door slid open to Jacen and Nom Anor's right. The space-suited being then walked through, turned around, shut the airlock door, and turned back to face the Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong.

The figure then reached both hands for its helmet, undid the sealed latches, and took it off. The being - who turned out to be a light-skinned human female in her early thirties - swung her blonde hair from the position it had from being under the helmet, and Jacen and Nom Anor saw that the female was fairly attractive, with high cheekbones, full lips, a round nose and chin, and green eyes.

Yet, in spite of her beauty, her expression was completely neutral.

"Hello, Jacen," she said.

"Danni!" Jacen exclaimed. "By the Force, it's good to see you again!" He reached out to give her a friendly hug, but when she wouldn't reciprocate, Jacen backed away with a sullen expression and simply shook her hand.

And Nom Anor only gave a brief flicker of a grin before resuming his own neutral expression.

"I can take him from here," Danni said to Jacen, indicating his Yuuzhan Vong charge with a nod. "You can start your preparations to leave now."

"Well, before I do that," Jacen said, "can you tell me how you managed to block off your Force-presence from me?"

"I've been practicing, along with my piloting," Danni answered. "I figured, if I could hide my presence from you, then I was on the right track with my training."

"Training?" Jacen asked. "For what? You made it clear to the Order that you didn't want to be a Jedi."

"No, but I still want to improve my Force-senses," Danni elaborated. "It may help me understand the biology and ecosystem of Zonama."

"So why take up being a pilot?" Jacen asked. "Wouldn't you wanna concentrate solely on understanding how Zonama works with Sekot as its consciousness?"

"Because I doubt that I will spend the rest of my life here, and Sekot and Magister Hal understand that," Danni said. "So I may, one day, branch out to the rest of the galaxy to apply my knowledge to understanding the ecosystems of other worlds."

"Other worlds that you and I both know aren't nearly as interesting as Zonama," Jacen pointed out.

"Perhaps," Danni admitted. "But you never know what you can find out in the galaxy."

"That's true," Jacen agreed.

"Like this one here," Danni said, acknowledging Nom Anor. "I'm surprised you managed to keep this slippery little shavit from Denon to here, Jacen."

Nom Anor made an obscene gesture at Danni that both she and Jacen ignored.

"He's pretty much resigned to his fate, at this point," Jacen explained. "He kinda knows that he can't escape me."

"Indeed," Nom Anor muttered reluctantly.

"Umm... so, Danni, are you sure you don't wanna, after bringing Nom Anor to the village... I don't know, hang out? Catch up, relive old times?" Jacen asked.

"Jacen, there's no way I wanna relive old times," Danni replied stoically. She pointed at Nom Anor. "This bastard's people were what caused those times."

Nom Anor only sneered at her.

"Well, okay, maybe _reliving_ old times is a bad idea," Jacen admitted. "I guess I phrased it badly. But do you still wanna hang out or something?"

"I have my duties back on Zonama," Danni countered. "And so do you with the Jedi, now that you're back from your little sojourn."

"Not really," Jacen said. "I was offered a position on the Council as a Master. I turned it down, so I doubt I'll be looked to as someone that Uncle Luke and the other Masters can rely on to take missions often."

"You were offered a position as Master?" Danni asked in amazement. But then she resumed her stoic, calm demeanor and inquired, "How and why? You were journeying throughout the galaxy to search for yourself and to understand the Force better."

"I'll show you how and why," Jacen said. He then bent down to the deck, placed his palms over it, and then began to secrete sweat from his palms that he used to coalesce into a small, green pot that took less than a minute to make. Both Danni and Nom Anor, in spite of his knowledge that Jacen could do this, watched in amazement as the Jedi then created a large clump of dirt and soil in the pot that took about thirty seconds. Then, after a quarter of a minute, Jacen created a beautiful flower dabbled in red, green, and yellow in all the right places.

He then picked up the pot and offered it to Danni, who took it in her continued stunned amazement.

"Jacen, this... this is incredible!" Danni exclaimed while continuing to gaze at the object in her hands.

But then Jacen's charming, self-congratulatory grin dropped into that of dull weakness. From there, he collapsed to the deck on his back unconscious.

"Jacen!" Danni cried in shock as she dropped the pot. It shattered into pieces on the deck, with dirt and soil spilling everywhere while the flower lay at an odd angle.

"You!" Danni pointed at Nom Anor. "Get into the shuttle and wait for me!"

Nom Anor nodded and headed through the conjoined airlocks without , Danni began hefting Jacen's unconscious form up by herself.

He then headed to the cockpit and was about to seat himself in the copilot seat when he stopped himself. Here he was with access to this ship's controls; and with Danni Quee still carrying Jacen into the ship, he could seal the cockpit off from the rest of the ship and pilot the shuttle away, allowing the two humans to dine in vacuum as he got away! And even with Zonama Sekot in the distance, which could potentially do something to stop him, Nom Anor still felt that this was his best possible chance to get away; after all, even though it foiled his attempts to kill it years ago, the planetary consciousness didn't stop him to begin with. So clearly, it could still be outwitted somehow.

Thus, he reached for the controls, only to be shocked into unconscious, his body dropping to the deck, by one of the living mechanisms that knew what he was trying to do.

.

When Jacen finally woke up, he found himself inside a Sekotan hut - recognized for its organic textures and overall layout - and lying on a soft bed that had contoured specifically for his body's maximum comfort. He was bare naked beneath the sheet that covered his muscular form partway up to his chest. Next to him, a familiar female Chadra-Fan seated on a stool raised to the bed's height was mixing some kind of solute into a glass of water with a metal spoon.

"Hey, Tekli," he said to his friend. His voice was hoarse and weak.

"Don't try to talk now, Jacen," Tekli replied in a professional voice. "You've been out for more than a day. It took us a few hours after your collapse, but through the comm relay on Esfandia, we were able to contact the Jedi Order and let them know of your predicament." She then finished up mixing the solute in the water and handed it to Jacen.

He sat up, took the glass, and drank the disgusting, but rejuvenating, contents in one gulp. When he was done, he coughed a few times from the nasty-tasting solution, but he eventually calmed down and lay back in the bed.

"You can talk now, but you'll still need at least two hours before you can get up and walk around without the possibility of collapsing again," Tekli explained.

"Thanks," Jacen said, his voice now a little stronger. "What happened to me?"

"Danni told me what happened back aboard your ship," Tekli explained. "You collapsed after creating a full-potted plant from your own sweat, which sounds fairly amazing, I'll say. But still, you nearly died of dehydration."

Jacen looked back at the Chadra-Fan in perplexity. "But that can't be," he said, his voice still weak. "I managed to get past that years ago."

"You did?" Tekli asked. "How?"

"By creating chemicals that would balance my homeostasis while creating substances from my own body," Jacen explained.

"Well, apparently," Tekli said, "that wasn't the case here."

"How did this happen?" Jacen asked more to himself than the Chadra-Fan.

"I suppose that's something you'll have to find out for yourself, Jacen," Tekli said.

It was then that there was a knock on the door, and this time, Jacen could sense her presence.

"Come in," Tekli called, having also sensed Danni's presence.

The blonde scientist then opened the door and walked inside. She was dressed in a simple light-green, ankle-length dress held up by the straps on her shoulders. "How's he doing, Tekli?" she asked.

"I'm doing fine, thanks," Jacen answered for himself.

"My work is done here," Tekli said as she stood up from the raised stool she sat on. She then took the empty glass from Jacen's hand and the bottles of water and hydration-enhancing solute from the foldout table next to her. She placed them into the organic satchel on the floor next to her before using the Force to fold the table and her stool so that they also fit into the bag.

"I will take my leave now," the Chadra-Fan continued as she hefted the satchel on her shoulder. "You two probably have some catching up to do, if only just to pass the time for Jacen's healing." She then headed to the door. "Good day to both of you."

"Goodbye, Tekli," Danni said.

"See ya, Tekli," Jacen followed up.

Once the Chadra-Fan was gone, Danni turned back to Jacen and leisurely approached the bed.

"Just so you know," she said, "I managed to take Nom Anor to La'okio after I brought you here for healing."

"Good to know," Jacen said.

"You know, after you collapsed," she said as she finally sat down on the edge of the bed, her lean side facing Jacen, "I told him to wait in the Sekotan shuttle. He tried to pilot it away to freedom, but he was knocked unconscious by the controls when they recognized his intent."

Jacen laughed weakly. "Good ol' Nom Anor," he said sarcastically.

"Yeah," Danni replied with a nod and laugh of her own. "He still hasn't changed after all these years."

"How's he been doing in La'okio so far?" Jacen asked.

"Well, he's only been there for a day, so far," Danni said, "so if there's gonna be any violence by those who were in the upper Yuuzhan Vong castes, I imagine it'll be at the end of today, at the very least."

"And I'll be gone, back to the Jedi," Jacen said.

Danni looked at him in mild confusion. "You said the Jedi might not rely on you."

"_Might_ not," Jacen said. "Uncle Luke and the other Masters may still expect me back after I recover, though. So, in the meantime, what say we catch up, eh?"

Danni shrugged. "Sure, why not."

"I see Tekli's been doing well," Jacen commented. "She helping you understand and study Zonama's biology and ecosystem?"

"When she isn't helping sick Ferroans and Yuuzhan Vong, yeah," Danni answered.

"And what about Tahiri? How's she been doing?"

"Very well, I'd say," Danni said. "She's long past any grief that she's had over Anakin. And she's been helping the Yuuzhan Vong try to get along with each other, with Harrar occasionally helping. It's not easy for most of them, particularly those who were once part of the elite, to live with those of different castes. It really pisses off the likes of the warriors and some of the priests that they have to mingle with those of the former worker castes and those who were once called the Shamed Ones; or the Extolled, as they're now called."

"How much violence is there among the Yuuzhan Vong here?" Jacen asked.

"Not that often," Danni answered. "We only get a murder or so every few months, and a number of violent brawls in even less time. But mainly, they simply tolerate each other, even to this day."

Jacen frowned. "That's sad to hear. I would think acceptance would have been the name of the game in the Yuuzhan Vong by now."

"Magister Jabitha says that it might take another decade or two before the next generation of Yuuzhan Vong finally come to accept each other," Danni said. "Let's hope she's right."

"I think she is," Jacen said. "So how've you been doing when you're not researching Zonama and its biology?"

"What do you mean?" Danni asked.

"What, you mean to tell me that's all you do all day?" Jacen asked. "You don't go out and socialize with anyone? Take a day off or something?"

"I'm not really interested in that, Jacen," Danni said. "Oh, I've had some research assistants that have come and gone, typically a Ferroan or a former Yuuzhan Vong Shaper. But they usually went off to do more interesting fields to them. And then there were my flight instructors, but again, the relationships were always professional. So I never really got to know any of them on a personal level."

"Sounds too bad to me," Jacen said. "And it also kinda sounds like you're not really moving on in your life."

"What are you talking about?" Danni asked. "I told you, I'm not interested in forming any long-lasting friendships, Jacen. And I do intend to one day leave Zonama to further explore the galaxy, as I said."

Jacen slowly sat up from the bed, the cover falling a bit off to reveal more of his built torso, and he gently took Danni's hand that was facing him.

"You don't wanna create anymore friendships after what happened to your colleagues on Belkadan and Helska Four, huh?" Jacen asked.

Danni betrayed nothing in her expression. "I was never really close to any of them, Jacen."

"But you still mourned their deaths," Jacen said. "You cared about them on some level, I know it, Danni. And I know you grieved over Miko Reglia when he died."

"I cried on your shoulder over him," Danni remembered aloud, her gaze staring straight ahead instead of Jacen. "He and I went through some of the worst torture that Prefect Da'Gara and his lackeys could throw at us. We were kindred spirits as that yammosk messed with our minds; the connection we had was one of empathy over the pain that we endured. And when he passed away, it felt like a part of me had also died with him."

Jacen remained silent for a respectful moment before he said, "Is that why you never wanted to get that close to anyone ever again, Danni? So you wouldn't have to feel that kind of pain?"

Danni hesitated in answering as she looked back at Jacen. "Maybe. I don't know, Jacen. All I know is that I never want to feel that kind of pain of feeling the death of someone I care about ever again."

"I completely understand," Jacen said. "And I'm sorry if I sound insensitive about this, but if you can't find anyone that you can truly care about because of the pain you suffered, you're letting that pain win. And by the end of your life, when death ultimately claims you, just as it does to all of us one way or another, you may find yourself with an unfulfilled life; a life with all but missing those who you care about, or those you could have cared about, because you were afraid to let anyone get too close again."

Danni smiled sadly. "Something that you and Jaina managed to overcome, huh?"

"I'd say so," Jacen responded. "But if you don't want to allow anyone else to get close to you ever again, then that's your decision, Danni. I'm just letting you know that you might be missing out."

Danni's green eyes started to form tears. "Is this your way of trying to renew... whatever we had when we were looking for this planet?"

"No," Jacen denied. "This is me telling you that you have the option to pursue what you want, but not at the expense of your own happiness."

Danni's sad smile was now becoming more and more happy. "I missed you, you know."

"I missed you, too," Jacen said with a reciprocating smile.

Danni shuffled closer along the bed, never breaking her gaze from Jacen's eyes. "Why couldn't you stay with me after the war, Jacen? Why couldn't you explore more of yourself and of the Force here? We could have explored more of our... feelings for each other here."

"Because it wasn't for me," Jacen said with a regretful tone. "You had a path you chose, and I had a path I chose. And we had to pursue them for our own sakes, even if it meant that we had to be apart. But if you want, I am willing to make up for lost time." He leaned in toward her, as if to give her a kiss.

But Danni looked away from him. "I can't have that, Jacen. You'll have to leave soon. And I can't... get close to you again if we may never see each other again."

Jacen hesitated before speaking again. "But after I'm gone, do you think you won't regret not making the best of the time we had together?"

Danni looked back at Jacen again. "Since Zonama Sekot left after the war, I've always regretted not making the best of the time that we had."

This time, when Jacen reached in to kiss her, she didn't resist, and so she fell into the embrace.

Soon, she slipped off her dress, undid her bra and underwear, and slipped beneath the sheet to finally make up for lost time with Jacen.

And she managed to use the Force to lock the door of the hut so that no one would interrupt them.


	14. Chapter 14

Lying together on the organic bed in post-coital bliss, Jacen and Danni cuddled up next to each other beneath the bedsheet that covered their immodest forms.

"You know, I just realized," Jacen said.

"Hmm?" Danni asked.

"I think I know why I collapsed back aboard the _Solo Quest_," Jacen said.

Danni looked at her lover. "Tell me."

Jacen couldn't help but grin at her. "I may sound like a bastard for saying this, but it was because of you."

"What?" Danni asked in shocked perplexity. She pulled herself out of his embrace.

"Hey, I'm not blaming you, exactly," Jacen said with upraised arms, as if he were surrendering.

"But you're blaming me generally?" Danni asked.

"Uh..."

"Just... explain, okay?"

"Okay," Jacen said. "To elaborate, as I told Nom Anor and Tekli, whenever I make compounds from myself, I also have a little process going on inside my body where I make replenishing compounds at the same time; something that at this point is very much second nature to me."

"But that didn't happen when you made that pot, the soil, and the plant for me," Danni said.

"No," Jacen agreed. "And that's kinda where you factored in."

"How?"

"Because I was distracted by you," Jacen said.

Danni looked at him in even more confusion for a moment. But when that moment passed, her eyes widened in realization. "Your feelings for me clouded a process in you that was second nature?"

"Yes," Jacen said with a smile. "It's been a long time since I've seen you, and it just stirred up old feelings that I couldn't take my mind off. Sorry about that, I guess I should have..."

Jacen trailed off as he saw the concerned look on Danni's face.

"Jacen, you... you shouldn't let your feelings for me ruin your concentration and have yourself almost die. You know what that would have done to me, even with the resentment I held against you for leaving?"

"Danni, I'm... I'm sorry," Jacen said as he reached to pat her cheek.

Danni grabbed his hand gently. "Promise me you'll never do that again."

"I promise, I won't lose my concentration..."

"Not just that," Danni said. "Promise me that you'll never create anymore substances like that from your own body ever again. If you ever have to, for any reason whatsoever, do it from your surrounding environment."

"You mean like if I'm in a spaceship or something?" Jacen asked. "It's not a good idea to take pieces of equipment around me to make a new substance, or the air wherever I am. Oxygen and hydrogen molecules are a must in most species, Danni, as you already know."

"Fine, fair enough, but only when you're around disposable objects, like a rock or something," Danni said.

"Look, all I can promise you is that I'll only make compounds from my own body if I absolutely have to do so, for whatever reason," Jacen said. "I won't be frivolous about it, like making things as examples to others. How's that?"

Danni hesitated; she was evidently thinking about whether or not this was an acceptable agreement. But soon, she smiled again. "That sounds acceptable to me."

"All right, good," Jacen said with relief.

But then Danni's smile turned into a frown in two seconds. "So I guess this means you'll have to return to the Jedi Order now."

"Pretty much," Jacen said. "As soon as I get dressed, of course. Now if there any clothes in here for me, I'd be good to go, but I don't think I'd look good in your dress." He began searching the room for any suitable clothes while Danni laughed mildly at his remark.

"Don't worry," she said as she stood up from bed to reveal her full, voluptuous form. "Let me get dressed, and I'll get you your clothes."

"Thanks," he said as he observed her getting dressed with sexual admiration.

.

Once Danni successfully piloted the Sekotan shuttle to dock airlocks with the orbiting _Solo Quest_, she shared one final kiss with Jacen, who sat in the copilot seat. When they broke away, he gave her a wry Solo grin, and said, "I'll send you some communiques every once in a while."

Danni nodded in approval. "I guess this is goodbye then."

"Goodbye, Danni."

"Goodbye, Jacen."

Jacen then stood up from the copilot seat and proceeded to head to the shuttle's airlock. But Danni soon stood up from her own seat and practically rushed her lover, who turned around to meet her head-on as she almost tackled him to the deck of the corridor. Instead, he caught her in a loving, passionate embrace that involved one of the deepest kisses they shared so far. Soon, Danni led them down to the deck, where they started to undress for what would be their last bout of intercourse for what may be a long time.

Once they were done and dressed up again, they said their legitimate goodbyes to each other before Jacen finally walked through the airlocks to board the _Quest_ again. After the airlocks were sealed and disconnected, Jacen piloted his ship away from the system's gravity well as Danni piloted her ship back to Zonama. From there, the _Quest_ broke through the system's well and jumped back into hyperspace.

An hour later, Jacen dropped the _Quest_ out of hyperspace for a recalculation for the next hyperjump. But before Jacen could do that, he noticed that he had a beeping message on his comm console. He pressed the button to begin the recording.

"Jacen, this is Jagged Fel. I understand that by now, you're in the Unknown Regions, so if and when you get this message, I need you to contact me on this frequency. Please respond as soon as possible; it's Jaina."

When the recording ended with the mentioning of Jacen's twin sister, he was left with mild shock. What happened to Jaina? he wondered. She didn't die, he knew. If that happened, he would have felt it through their connection in the Force.

Then he remembered that he hadn't contacted her in a while, either by communique or through the Force. So he decided to reach out to her with the latter method and...

He received only a mental wall of violent images and a heightened sense of fear and loathing for everyone and everything.

Jacen quickly withdrew from reaching out to Jaina through the Force, and shook his head to get those flashing images out of his mind. When that was done, he decided to contact his sister's fiance.

"Jag," he said once their communication was established. "This is Jacen. What's wrong with Jaina?"

"Jacen, when was the last time you communed with Jaina at all?" Jag's voice asked.

"Uh..." Jacen struggled to remember. "About a month ago, I think. And I don't think the attempt I tried to make in contacting her through the Force moments ago counts."

"What did you get from the contact that 'doesn't count?'" Jag asked.

"A series of violent images," Jacen answered. He tried to recall the images that, moments earlier, he attempted to vanquish. "They went by so quickly, they... starfighter battles; explosions; fights with Yuuzhan Vong; our brother Anakin dying aboard the _Baanu Rass_."

"So that's what's going on," Jag said. "Jacen, you need to come over to Csilla right now. You can do more for Jaina than even I could."

"All right, I'll be on my way," Jacen replied.

Jag cut off the communication as Jacen started to input the hyperspace coordinates for Csilla. In moments, the _Solo Quest_ was bound not for Galactic Alliance space, but further into the Unknown Regions.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note: To all you Jaina-Jag fans, turn back now. If you dare to continue reading, feel free to criticize all you want.**

Upon dropping out of hyperspace into the Csilla system, the _Solo Quest_ was hailed almost immediately. Jacen answered it and heard Jag Fel ask, "Is that you, Jacen?"

"It's me," Jacen answered. "Where is Jaina?"

"On Csilla. Let me guide you in," Jag's voice replied.

Moments later, Jacen saw a Chiss clawcraft rocketing toward the _Quest_ both through his ship's viewport and on his sensors. For personal confirmation, Jacen checked through the Force to find that, indeed, it was Jag who was coming for him.

Jacen then piloted his YT-1300 toward the clawcraft and allowed Jag to lead him toward the ice-covered world of Csilla. Minutes later, after both ships slalomed through the violent ice-storm that was now raging the nearly-invisible continent below, both the _Quest_ and Jag's clawcraft touched down side-by-side. Seconds after that, the ground opened up beneath the vessels, but not to drop them in a deep chasm, but to gradually lower them via the landing pad that the ships were sharing. The ground closed back up above them as the ships continued toward the underground city that the Chiss had built here.

.

An hour after Jacen and Jag debarked their ships to traverse the city of Cshanalla, the latter led the former to Cshanalla's mental asylum district.

"This was where we placed her after she went... barvy," Jag told Jacen. Right now, the two of them were standing in front of the asylum as the hovercab that brought them here was zooming away into the distance.

Jacen stood silently for a moment as he observed the asylum in wonder, thinking about what kind of madness must have brought his sister to this point. He looked back at her fiance. "Do you know why she had a mental breakdown?"

"You would know better than me," Jag said. "You're the one who was able to look into her mind."

Jacen nodded in acknowledgment of Jag's point. "How was Jaina stopped? How was she restrained? She's a Jedi; I doubt she could have been stopped easily."

"We had ysalamiri ready to stop her in case she became a threat," Jag explained.

Jacen looked at Jag in perplexity. "You had that on hand to stop your fiance?"

Jag shook his head. "No. My society did; as you know, the Chiss are secretive. They're also a little paranoid, especially when it concerns Jedi. Even after your aunt and uncle's expedition with Aristocra Formbi to the Outbound Flight crash site, and the unveiling of that conspiracy that allowed you the time needed to find Zonama Sekot, the Ascendancy still has trust issues with everyone outside the government."

"All right then," Jacen said as he looked back at the asylum. "But the Ascendancy is willing to let me help Jaina, right?"

"Yes," Jag confirmed. "In fact, I told them that you may need the Force for this one. So far, none of our psychiatrists have been able to get through to her; she's more like a wild animal than a human being at this point."

"So she's not being restrained by any ysalamiri now?" Jacen inquired.

"Not by a live ysalamiri," Jag elaborated. "After I told the asylum that you may be the one who can help Jaina, the government decided that they would have Chiss scientists manufacture a serum from ysalamiri blood to be injected into Jaina. She gets them regularly so she doesn't regain her abilities to try to break out."

"That may still interfere with however I may be able to help Jaina," Jacen said, "but I think I can still do something."

"I hope you can," Jag said. "I'll guide you to her cell."

He then began leading Jacen toward the asylum.

Sometime later, the two of them, along with a large, burly male orderly with a keycard, stopped outside one of the asylum's cells. "This is where she's being kept," Jag told Jacen.

"Thank you," Jacen said. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Jag said. "You're going to need it."

The orderly then inserted the keycard into the slot on the wall next to the door. The still red light above the slot shifted to green, and the door slid open to the right. Jacen then walked inside, where the door slid shut behind him but remained unlocked.

In the white-blue room that he found himself in, he found a gray-clad figure with long brown hair sitting on the far left corner of the cell. The figure's head was buried up in her arms, which she had propped up against her tucked-in legs; and all Jacen could hear from his sister was a persistent moaning.

"Jaina?" he asked.

She looked up her arms with eyes that had dilated pupils. Those eyes glared at Jacen with such intensity that he almost grimaced at the promise of death that they offered. Otherwise, Jaina's expression was completely blank.

Which was what made Jaina's sudden launch from her vulnerable position to a full-on sprint for her brother was almost unexpected. Almost.

Because of the ysalamiri serum running through her blood, suppressing her Force-abilities, Jacen only had his sight to know that Jaina wanted to kill him for some reason; that, and his hearing for the animal-like roar she emitted.

But while Jacen couldn't sense his sister through the Force, he could still use it when it came to himself. So he flipped off to the side at a super-fast rate, causing Jaina to nearly stumble when she only caught empty air, before he planted his feet up against the wall to his right and used it to launch himself for Jaina in midair. He tackled his sister to the soft floor, where he pinned her wrists at either side and began to do what Danni asked him not to do ever again: he began to secrete a calming anesthesia through her body via the palms of his hands.

Fortunately, Jacen wasn't as distracted as he was before; inwardly, he made sure that the processes balancing out his homeostasis as he simultaneously created the anesthesia were in working order. This, and the fact that he felt that this was necessary to get Jaina to calm down gave Jacen's conscious assurance that he wasn't betraying Danni's word; after all, he did tell her that he would only do something like this if it were absolutely necessary, something that Danni herself agreed to.

Soon, Jaina began to calm down beneath Jacen's grasp, but she didn't fall asleep as most anesthetics worked. Instead, she became more pliant and peaceful, which allowed Jacen to let go of his sister's wrists.

Although their twin bond was strong enough to reach across the galaxy, Jacen still felt that he needed to get this physically close to his sister in order to try to help her; especially if he wanted to know what exactly Jaina was going through. And that meant that he would have to practice a technique taught to him by the Theran Listeners of Nam Chorios: vein-routing, or mnemotherapy, as his guide on Nam Chorios, Sel, liked to call it.

"Jaina," he said softly. "I want you to tell me why you are acting like this." Another thing that the anesthesia made compliant in Jaina was her mind; something that Jacen never liked to do to anyone. It made him feel a little more like Onimi, who liked to control minds himself, like Shimrra and the advanced Slayer priest-warriors that Jacen, Jaina, and Luke had all fought during the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar.

Nevertheless, he was providing some stability to a broken mind. And even if that stability was false, and if it was some misguided delusion on his part that might lead him down a dark path in the future, Jacen still felt like he needed to do this for his sister.

"Juh... Juh... Jacen," Jaina stuttered. "I... I... I couldn't handle it anymore."

"What couldn't you handle anymore, Jaina?"

Tears began to stream from her eyes that poured down to either side of her face. They pooled along the floor next to both sides of her face as she sniffed. "The war, Jacen. The war."

And then he understood; the violent flashbacks to the Yuuzhan Vong War were painful memories of all the death and carnage that Jaina had experienced firsthand.

She was going through severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Jaina, what caused this to happen to you?"

It took a little while before Jaina could answer. "Over a month ago. My squad and I... found a hidden Yuuzhan Vong base. We fought them, and we killed them all. But... we lost several. Including Shawnkyr." She looked like she was on the verge of sobbing. "She was a great friend to Jag and me. And the violence... of that fight, and the deaths we endured... it brought back too many painful memories, Jacen."

It was then that Jaina broke down into sobbing, and Jacen instinctively hugged his sister to try to comfort her. And while he did that, he wondered why, in the six years since the war ended, that only now that Jaina was suffering from shellshock.

And he wondered why he himself never went through the same thing; not so far, anyway. Or why his parents, or Uncle Luke or Aunt Mara, or any of their own friends had gone through the same thing that Jaina was going through right now.

Was it because she wasn't getting the same amount of love and comfort like the older generation had? Was Jag... being abusive?

No, that couldn't be. He would have sensed a worse man in Jag Fel, if that were the case. No, it was something else. It had to be.

And the more that Jacen thought about it as he related his thoughts to Jaina's character, he realized what it must have been, what Jaina was lacking compared to everyone else; she hadn't been relying on the Force to help her.

Oh, sure, not everyone among their friends and family had the Force. Their father didn't have it, and even after the depression he went through following Chewbacca's death, he still went on, more or less a normal person considering his own wartime experiences as a Rebel. The same went for the likes of Lando Calrissian, Wedge Antilles, and the other Rebellion-New Republic veterans who only relied on their trained skills and experiences to get them through.

But even Jacen had to admit that as much as having the Force was a blessing, it could also be a curse. Putting aside the fact that anyone could embrace their own inner darkness to be a Sith or a Dark Jedi, simply feeling the deaths of others through the Force could be even more traumatic than simply knowing that they died, or even seeing their loved ones die before them. But, for a Jedi, as much as the Force could pour more salt on those kinds of wounds, it also helped to heal them, so that they could go on like others who did not have the Force and who could only get through the stages of grieving.

But someone like Jaina, who relied on the Force as merely a tool - just as her and Jacen's younger brother Anakin once had - and who acted not so much as a Jedi as a regular combatant, her refusal to use the Force as something to meditate on, as Jacen did - and even as Luke, Mara, and Leia did - would leave her with an inability to cope in the long-run. Oh, yes, there were times when she had used the Force for meditation, and she had the comfort of family and friends on her side; in fact, that was more than Jacen had during his time with Vergere and the Yuuzhan Vong, whereas Jaina was surrounded by a matriarchal society with her parents and fellow Jedi on Hapes after Anakin died.

And it was because of these elements that Jaina was able to get through the war as well as she had. But since that time, she had relied only on herself, even with Jag Fel and his family to provide her comfort, and the occasional visit and comm call from Han and Leia. And it was because of this, combined with the recent tragedy that she just mentioned, led her into going over the edge.

Which left Jacen one option to help his sister.

"Jaina... is it all right if I take those memories away from you?" Mnemotherapy wasn't simply through influencing the minds of others for compliance; no, it was a precursor to routing out traumatic memories, something that Jacen thought might be necessary going into this.

"Please!" Jaina yelled. "Take them away, Jacen! I don't know how I can deal with them anymore!"

At that, Jacen almost regretted bringing it up. He realized that it might be a terrible idea to take away all of the memories that had shaped Jaina into the fierce, courageous woman that she had become; the positive memories that she shared with her friends and family, even if some, if not most, of them were in grief-sharing. And it was in the Yuuzhan Vong War that she had met Jag; would Jaina not remember who Jag was? Who his family was? Would she know that Chewbacca, Anakin, and so many others were no longer among the living?

Internally, Jacen vowed to himself that he would only do it if he thought that Jaina was too damaged for any psychiatrist to treat. Even after Jag's conveyance of those doctors' assessments to Jacen, the latter still had to see if there was anything he could do just short of stripping those memories away.

So he placed both hands to either side of Jaina's head and concentrated, reaching into her mind harder than he had when he probed her mind light years away.

When he was done, he found that the damage was, indeed, too severe for any psychiatric professional to treat. Jaina was too far gone; and the anesthesia he gave her was only a temporary reprieve.

"Fine then," Jacen said finally. "Let's begin."

And it was then that he began the process of mnemotherapy; through the Force, he slowly latched onto the emotions that those memories possessed, and he pulled on them, consciously fighting against Jaina's unconscious mind that wanted those memories to stay. Nevertheless, Jacen's persistence paid off, and all of the horrible memories that plagued Jaina's psyche hovered into the air between brother and sister.

Jacen looked at them, the flashing images that he had, in a sense, seen when he had reached into Jaina's mind following his previous departure from Zonama. Those memories continued to hang in midair, through the Force, patiently waiting for Jacen to make his decision about their fate.

Jacen remembered from his Theran Listener mentor, Taru Durn, that masters of the vein-routing technique must take those memories that they pulled into themselves; they were human memories, valuable things that could not simply be allowed to evaporate into nothingness. As horrifying as those memories were, Theran Listeners still believed that memories like these needed to be preserved until the ends of their lives.

But Jacen hesitated as he thought about it. He had enough memories of his own in the Yuuzhan Vong War. It was a selfish thought, he knew, and while he understood that he would not be traumatized by Jaina's experiences - for no Theran Listener was thrown into the same trauma that once inflicted the victims - Jacen still didn't know if he could bear anymore of that pain.

But it was for Jaina; if she would forget those experiences that made her into who she was, then Jacen had to remember them for her. If not as a Jedi, then Jacen had an obligation to do this as her brother; her last remaining brother.

So he took those memories into his being, where he almost instantly felt the pain that Jaina had once felt. It was an unbearable kind, one that Jacen had to scream as he felt it rip through his body, and at the periphery of his awareness, he noticed that the cell's door opened for Jag and the orderly still with him to enter.

But as quickly as the pain came, it was gone, and Jacen collapsed next to his sister from the agonizing exhilaration that he just experienced.

"Jacen, are you all right?" Jag asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jacen said as he stood back up. He then looked back down at the sleeping Jaina before returning his gaze to Jag. "But I don't know if she'll remember you, Jag."

"What do you mean?" Jag inquired.

"I took her memories of the Yuuzhan Vong War," Jacen said. "So she may not remember you, or why she loved you."

"Wait," Jag said, "if only took her memories of the war, doesn't that mean she'll still remember everything after? Like me?"

"On some level, yes," Jacen answered.

"What do you mean on some level?"

"When I took her memories of the war," Jacen said, "they also collapsed the memories of everything after; an unfortunate but inevitable side-effect to what I just did."

"So, when she wakes up, she thinks she's a teenager?" Jag asked.

"Maybe," Jacen answered reluctantly. "In either case, I'm going to have to take her back to the Jedi Order, where she can be helped. Even after all the memories I took from her, she needs to know what happened. I'm sorry, Jag, but I'm afraid you'll have to call off your wedding."

Jag grimaced, but eventually nodded in agreement. "All right. Do what you have to for her." He then reached for the engagement ring that he had on his hand and promptly slipped it off.

Jacen did the same for the unconscious Jaina. He then offered his ring-holding hand to Jag. "Give me yours. I'll keep both of them, as reminders of the love that you and Jaina had."

Jag briefly held his ring in a tight grasp, but relented and dropped into Jacen's palm. Both rings clanked together, as if symbolizing Jag's decision to let Jaina go.

"She'll be out for the next hour or so," Jacen said as he slipped the rings in his pocket before picking Jaina up in his arms. "I'll try to update her on the galaxy as we travel back home."


	16. Chapter 16

An hour into the _Solo Quest_'s first jump into hyperspace from Csilla, Jacen sensed Jaina's awakening in the ship's medbay. Seeing that his vessel had another half an hour or so before it had to drop back out for a course correction, he left the cockpit and trotted to the medbay, where his confused sister was sitting up on the bed that Jacen placed her on.

When she looked at him, her confused expression became even more confused. "Jacen? Where am I? And why do you look like you're twenty years older?"

"Jaina," Jacen said, "I know this is going to sound unbelievable to you, so I'll try to be as slow in my explanation as possible."

"Start talking then," Jaina said.

And then Jacen began his explanation, starting all the way back to when they, their mother, Uncle Luke, and Aunt Mara all received the news of Chewbacca's death on Sernpidal. From there, Jaina grew more and more horrified as Jacen continued to relate the horrors of the Yuuzhan Vong War, which included the destruction of the Yavin 4 Jedi Academy, Anakin's death, Jaina's brief turn to her inner darkness in the Hapes Consortium, Jacen's own torture among the Yuuzhan Vong, and so much more. Even with the more positive aspects that sprung from the war, like Jaina's relationship to Jag and the Jedi's new philosophy in the Unifying Force, left her completely scared.

In between his extensive explanations, he would go back to the cockpit to make hyperspace dropouts, new course calculations, and renewed hyperspace jumps as the _Solo Quest_ continued its destination for Denon.

When Jacen was finally done, after two hours of explanation, during which Jaina asked no questions nor did she interrupt otherwise, she was left with only one question:

"Can I have those positive memories back, Jacen?"

Jacen shook his head regrettably. "I can't give them back to you without all of the horrifying memories. Otherwise, the happy memories will collapse due to the horrifying memories that I retained for you being unable to fill in the gaps in your recall. From what Master Taru Durn told me back on Nam Chorios, when he answered a question similar to yours when I was almost finished training in mnemotherapy, the results could either lead to the following: One, the happy memories will simply fade away into non-existence, as if I myself led the memories to dissipate on their own when I committed the vein-routing technique.

"Or two: It could cause a new psychological breakdown in you, one that could be possibly worse than the one that you were just suffering from back on Csilla."

"But people have gaps in their memories all the time, Jacen," Jaina pointed out. "They're called suppressed memories. Just because someone may not be able to remember them, that doesn't mean that it'll collapse the rest of their memory of the time before that."

"Perhaps not," Jacen agreed. "But they can be stimulated by the senses, such as touch, taste, smell, a sight, a sound, and the memory can return. With what I did, I took those memories away from you so that nothing can return them to you, except for me.

"But even if a suppressed memory could not be stimulated, you're right, it still wouldn't cause any side effects in most beings who suffer from it. However, if I attempt to return these positive memories to you using a Force-technique, it would have disastrous results for your mind that even I cannot control, or even more well-practiced masters such as Taru Durn would be able to mitigate. Like the Unifying Force, in which a Jedi must maintain balance between their own inner light and darkness, so, too, must all memories be returned, good and bad alike, even if there's more bad than good, as it is in your case; that, of course, is where the comparison between the Unifying Force ends.

"Otherwise, the mind will collapse left by the unfilled gaps; right now, those gaps don't exist in your head because you didn't even know about the time that passed from the time we left for Dubrillion to now. Once I open the room up in your mind, where I give you only the good memories, your mind will not be able to handle it, even with all that I told you and everything else I could tell you that would make the positive memories make the remotest sense, never mind making your mind go insane again just from the emptiness in memory. What I have in me right now are your personal life experiences, which you have experienced firsthand, and even I can't fully understand the depth that they had on you. Only you can, which is why I can't simply tell you like I did; you need to have _all_ of your memories back."

Jaina was left speechless again, and looked to the floor in contemplation. As Jacen looked at her, not knowing what to say to her, he saw that she was, indeed, no longer the woman she had grown into because of how the war had shaped her; she was that same bright teenager with a cheery, youthful optimism whose passion for technology was untainted by attempts to distance herself away from her friends and family for fear that they would one day die on her because of the Yuuzhan Vong.

Now, to Jaina, the Yuuzhan Vong were nothing more than a name to her, no different than that of the Killiks - which Jacen didn't bother to bring up the fact that he actually encountered some of them - or that of their mother's homeplanet of Alderaan. To her, the alien invaders were more like a ghost tale than an enemy that she had fought against for too many times to count.

And the reality that Chewie, Anakin, and so many of their friends had died had not really settled into the mind of this teenager trapped in a woman's body.

"Wait," Jaina said. "What if you give me all the memories back, but suppress the bad ones?"

Jacen shook his head. "That may possibly work on someone else, but not in your case. There are too many negative memories, Jaina, and the gaps between the positive ones would be too wide for your mind to either collapse from the emptiness, or simply reawakening the memories that I could suppress. And then you could fall back into the insanity that I helped you from."

Once more, Jaina fell into silence for a moment before she said, "Jacen... ten years of my life are gone because of you. Even if I pleaded for you to take them away for my mental health, over two-fifths of my life have essentially passed me by now. I can't relive that; even if I could begin to rebuild my life, I'll still have had a decade that I can never get back."

Jacen sighed before he walked over to Jaina and sat next to her on the medical bed. "Jaina, I'm sorry. If there had been another way, I would have taken it. But you were so insane back on Csilla that-"

"Why didn't you try to share this pain with me, instead of outright taking it from me, Jacen?" Jaina asked. "Our twin bond is what makes us stronger than when we're apart. I want those memories back, Jacen, but I want you to support me through them. Can we do that?"

Jacen thought about what Jaina said for a few moments. "Yes. I think we can. But we must begin that when we get back to Denon; this kind of process will obviously take some time, and I don't want us to be too distracted that I can't jump us out of hyperspace in time and stuff like that."

"How much longer will it be?" Jaina asked.

"Maybe another day or two," Jacen said.

"I can wait."


	17. Chapter 17

Like before, Jacen went through the standard hails to get the _Solo Quest_ through Denon's Orbital Control (though, this time, he wasn't misguided by a True Victory Party spy to a slum district) and he piloted his ship down toward the modest Jedi Temple.

There, he docked the _Quest_ in the Temple's relatively small docking bay, for which there was room for, at most, another half-dozen ships the size of a YT-1300. From the cockpit, he and Jaina, seated in the copilot seat, could see, through the forward viewport, the expectant gathering of the Skywalkers and Solos - even little Ben was there, standing in front of his mother. The only one who wasn't part of the family that was among them was a feminine-looking Yuuzhan Vong Hunter droid standing directly behind the Skywalkers; Jacen figured that was Nanna, the YVH nanny droid that Luke mentioned in his last conversation with Jacen.

Jacen sighed before he looked at his sister. "You ready?"

Jaina looked back at him. "You could always tell them first."

Jacen shook his head. "They deserve to hear it from you first."

Jaina reluctantly nodded. "Okay then."

The twins then unbuckled their harnesses, and while Jaina headed for the boarding ramp, Jacen pressed a button that began its lowering to the hangar floor. He then followed his sister.

By the time Jacen reached the bottom of the ramp, Jaina was now exchanging the hugs that she had with her and Jacen's parents to Luke and Mara. After she playfully ruffled Ben's crimson hair, Jaina turned back to her brother, and the attention among the extended family shifted over to him. He headed on over to exchange embraces and greetings with his parents, aunt, uncle, and even tousled Ben's hair, much to his obvious chagrin.

"Why does everyone keep doing that to me?" Ben muttered to no one in particular.

The adults in the group shared a chuckle, and when it was done, Jaina asked her family, "Uh, guys, can we just have a private talk among adults here?"

"Oh, c'mon, why can't I listen in?" Ben moaned.

Luke looked at his son for a moment before exchanging his glance back to his niece. "Is it serious?" he asked.

Jaina spared a glance at her brother before nodding wordlessly.

"Nanna, take Ben back to his room and make sure he does his homework," Mara commanded the YVH droid with them.

"Right away, ma'am," the droid responded in an overly feminine voice that starkly contrasted with its militant tone. "C'mon, Ben."

Ben scowled but otherwise complied as Nanna gently took him by the arm and led him away to the nearest exit from the hangar.

"So, what was it that you wanted to discuss-"

Luke's question to the twins was cut off as Jaina suddenly broke into sobs. Her parents reached out wordlessly to try to comfort her, but she immediately turned away and rushed back to the _Quest_'s boarding ramp. There, she sat on the foot of the ramp and brought her knees in as she began crying into it. Again, Han and Leia hurried after her to try to console her, in spite of their lack of knowledge of why she was acting this way.

Luke and Mara remained in place while looking on in curiosity, while Jacen turned his regretful gaze from his sister back to his aunt and uncle.

"Do you know why Jaina's acting like this?" Mara asked her nephew.

"I do," Jacen answered calmly. "It's only now occurring to her that Chewbacca and Anakin have been dead for years. I can feel it in our twin bond."

Luke and Mara exchanged curious glances at one another before refocusing their attention on Jacen.

"But she's known this for years," Luke pointed out.

"She did," Jacen agreed. "Until I took away her memories of the Yuuzhan Vong War and almost everything after that."

The baffled expressions that the Skywalkers leveled at their nephew matched those of Han and Leia's; the elder Solos were now looking at their son's back, given that, in the midst of her sobbing, Jaina explained to them exactly as Jacen told Luke and Mara.

"Why did you do that, Jacen?" Luke asked. His tone contained no judgement or reproach, just a simple want to understand the situation.

"She suffered a mental breakdown in the Chiss Ascendancy," Jacen elaborated. "Post-traumatic stress disorder from the last war. None of the doctors on Csilla were able to help her from the insanity she suffered. So I had to take her memories. Right now, there's virtually no gap in time from Twenty-Five ABY to now for her."

"And she gave you permission to do this?" Mara asked.

"She pleaded for me to do it," Jacen answered. "I felt like I had no other choice."

Save for Jaina, who continued crying over Chewie and Anakin, everyone in the immediate vicinity of the _Solo Quest_ remained utterly silent, unsure of what to do or say now.

`But Jaina and I both think there's a way that we can restore her memories without her suffering from another mental breakdown," Jacen continued.

"Oh, yeah? How?" Mara asked.

"Yeah, Jacen," Han said, standing up from comforting his daughter. "How are you going to give your sister ten years of her life back without making her go barvy again?"

Jacen partially turned so that he could shift his attention from the Skywalkers and his more immediate family much more naturally. "Jaina and I were thinking that we share that trauma through an extensive practice of our bond."

"Do you think that might actually work?" Luke asked.

Jacen shrugged, though without nonchalance. "Honestly, I'm not so sure. For all I know, we can both fall into the madness that Jaina suffered from if we try this. And then I, the only one who's able to do this, will be left as broken as Jaina was."

"But you absorbed my memories, Jacen!" Jaina cried. "You took them and experienced them! And you didn't break!"

"While I felt the pain, it still wasn't my own," Jacen said. "So it still didn't have a profound effect on me like my own experiences from the war were. But if I share them with you, Jaina, just as I'll have to share my own pain with you, it'll both become our truly shared pain; and we may not recover from it."

"Tell me, Jacen," Luke said before anyone else could speak up, "where did you learn this technique?"

"From the Theran Listeners of Nam Chorios, Uncle Luke," Jacen answered promptly.

"That's what I thought," Luke said. "So it's the vein-routing technique, or mnemotherapy, that you used on Jaina, is that correct?"

"Yes, it is," Jacen confirmed.

"About six months ago, the Order just received a new member from Nam Chorios," Luke said. "A former Theran Listener himself, by the name of Garis Boric. He's only a few years younger than you, but he's already mastered mnemotherapy himself. In fact, he can do it better than you, Jacen."

"How do you know he can do it better than me?" Jacen asked.

"Because he told me that he's been in a situation like this before," Luke explained. "One of his fellow Listeners had a sibling that had suffered from the relapse of a suppressed traumatic memory that nearly turned the sibling into a catatonic vegetable. Garis's fellow Listener was the one who performed the mnemotherapy on his sister, but later on, the sister wanted the memories back, believing that they were what shaped her into who she was.

"Without them, she felt weak and useless, and she felt like she was under-performing in her duties. So she went back to her brother so that they could share the pain, though that would require her to suffer from his pain as much as he had to suffer from hers; at least that was what they thought. So this Listener went to Garis to ask for help; if his fellow Listener and his sibling were to fall in the sharing of their pain, then Garis was to extract both of their memories and keep it inside him for the rest of his life.

"So the procedure began; and, unfortunately, the siblings fell into their collective pain. Hence, Garis saved them from their shared mental instability by taking in their memories. The sister of Garis's colleague went back to her job and strove to perform better, even without those experiences that shaped her, and the Listener who shared in his sibling's madness was exiled from Nam Chorios along with Garis."

"Exiled?" Jacen asked. "For what?"

"Well, what Garis and his fellow Listener, whom he refused to name," Luke explained, "had performed was considered sacrilege among the rest of the Listeners' order. To return the traumatic memories, even at the insistence and consent of the memories' victims, and especially with pain-sharing, was taboo among the Theran Listeners. So while Garis's colleague was banished for committing the act, Garis himself was exiled from Nam Chorios as an accessory to the deed."

"Well, then, let's meet him, so we can get this over with!" Jaina exclaimed.

"I'm in agreement there," Han followed.

Leia was silent for a moment before she nodded. "Yes. Let's go."

The elder Solos then guided their grief-stricken daughter toward Jacen and the Skywalkers, who turned and headed for the exit of the hangar bay that led to the rest of the Jedi Temple.

Minutes later, on the Temple's second floor, the Skywalker-Solo party reached a door that was halfway down the corridor to the left. There, Luke pressed the buzzer next to the door.

A moment later, a calm, gentle voice belonging to what sounded like a human male responded from the answering machine above the buzzer. "Yes?"

"Apprentice Boric," Luke replied, "this is Master Skywalker. My niece and nephew, Jaina and Jacen Solo, would like to see you."

Almost immediately, the door slid open, and a tall, dark-haired, light-skinned human male who looked like he was barely out of his teens stood in the threshold with a starstruck expression his face; this expression was directed solely at the male Solo twin.

"Jacen Solo!" Garis Boric exclaimed. "By the Force, it's so good to finally meet you!" He took Jacen's hand into a firm shake.

Jacen, though caught off-guard like everyone else by Garis's enthusiasm - even the melancholy Jaina seemed wary at the young apprentice - still managed to give a natural Solo grin and smoothly retrieved his hand after the shaking went on for a few seconds.

"Likewise, Garis," Jacen said before he took his hand out of Garis's. "Um, Master Skywalker here told me about your experience as a Theran Listener and how that could help Jaina and me."

Garis's starstruck expression turned grim almost immediately. "What can I do for you?"

"You faced something like this before," Jacen pointed it out. "It's what got you and your fellow Listener exiled from Nam Chorios. Here, however, you will face no such penalty if you ensure that if I can't return Jaina's memories by also sharing our memories both ways, you can take our memories away."

"Come in then," Garis replied without hesitation.

The entire Skywalker-Solo party then filed into the room. Like most, if not all, of the dormitories in the Jedi Temple, it was sparse and minimalist, with only a bed and a few personal trinkets placed here and there throughout the room.

"Would any of you like to witness the process?" Garis asked the elder Solos and Skywalkers.

"Witness?" Han asked. "Isn't that what we're gonna be doing?"

"He's asking whether or not you would like to see what we three are going to see, Dad," Jacen said as he pointed to himself, Jaina, and Garis.

"How's that possible?" Han asked. "I mean, I'm sure all of you can probably see it, somehow, through the Force, but I can't-"

"It's okay, Captain Solo," Garis interrupted. "You don't need the Force to witness something like this. You just need a bowl."

"A bowl?" Mara asked, as confused as Han, Leia, and Luke all were. She then looked at her nephew. "Jacen, you have any idea what he's talking about?"

As Jacen answered, Garis stretched out a hand toward one of his personal trinkets, which was a brown, brass bowl, and used the Force to levitate it in his direction.

"When there are others who are present for a session of mnemotherapy," Jacen explained, "a bowl like that is used to let others see what the Listener and the patient, or patients in this case, are seeing."

"Luke, did you know about this?" Han asked his brother-in-law.

"I didn't know that much about it," Luke replied.

Garis soon placed the bowl on the floor before him before he sat cross-legged. He waved at the Solo twins. "Please, sit down and face each other."

The twins complied, placing themselves on the opposite side of the bowl from Garis.

"Jacen," the apprentice said, "you may begin."

With that, the male twin placed his hands on either side of his sister's head, which she didn't even flinch away from, and Jacen began to give Jaina her memories of the Yuuzhan Vong War and everything after that back to her.

Yet, at the same time, he also allowed that connection to be a two-way street so that whenever she needed his support for going through those memories, she could take some of his inner strength in order to balance herself. And not only that, but he kept those memories for himself as well as giving them to Jaina, so that her experiences were now also his experiences.

But in order for that to be balanced, he had to share his experiences with her.

So he began to gave her the emotions that he had through the war; enduring his own grief over Chewbacca, rescuing Danni Quee from Helska 4, the realization that the Yuuzhan Vong were truly absent from the Force, the death of Ithor; the guilt that Jacen had for not stopping Thrackan Sal-Solo from firing Centerpoint Station at Fondor, Jacen's fear that if he misused the Force he would let the whole galaxy slip into darkness.

And there was more; the death of Anakin (which, again, Jaina had already shared in), Jacen's capture by the Yuuzhan Vong and Vergere, his torture by them...

When the twins reached that point, Jaina couldn't take it; and because of that, Jacen couldn't take it. For all the pain that she had suffered, feeling what Jacen felt was too agonizing. And they both began to convulse as the swirl of mental images, seen by their elder relatives from Garis's reflecting bowl, rebounded through their connection, magnifying the pain to dangerous levels.

"What's happening?" Leia and Han practically asked together. Luke and Mara remained silent, though obviously concerned.

"The pain they're feeling, it's too much," Garis quickly explained before he placed his hands on Jaina and Jacen's foreheads. His voice immediately turned soft and became more quiet. "Calm, Jaina. Calm, Jacen. You can do this. I have faith in both of you that you can pull through this. As your pain is shared, so, too, is your triumph over that pain. As your pain is shared, so, too, is your triumph over that pain. As your pain is shared, so, too, is your triumph over that pain." Garis continued to repeat this over and over as he sent out waves of the Force from both of his hands that sent calming signals into the twins' brains.

And soon, very soon, they had both calmed, and, indeed, they had triumphed over that pain. And from there, they felt their joys, as well; the feelings that Jacen had for Danni, just as Jaina had for Jag; the subsequent victories in the war, which included the Battle of Ebaq 9, the triumph of finding Zonama Sekot, and, finally, the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar.

And there, Jacen had relived his experience of achieving oneness with the Force, and Jaina was there to bask in it as much as he had.

With that, the process had finished, and Jacen and Jaina had automatically snapped out of the bonding process.

"Jaina?" Jacen asked. "Are you... back?"

She hesitated, but eventually smiled with tears. "Yes, Jacen. I'm back."

They then hugged, and everyone else just left them alone for the moment.


	18. Chapter 18

After knocking on his sister's door, Jacen received an answer of, "Come," from inside the room. So he opened the door and headed on in, where he found an expectant Jaina waiting.

"Well, the _Quest_ has been refueled," Jacen explained. "So are you ready to go now?"

Jaina nodded. "I can't wait to see Jag and his family again." She then headed for the exit that her brother was partially blocking.

He moved out of the way to allow her to pass, but then extended his arm to prevent her from going any further.

"Oh," he said as he committed this action, "I almost forgot." He reached his other hand into his pocket and produced a couple of rings. Jaina cupped her hands and Jacen dropped the rings there, which she placed in her own pocket with a grateful smile to Jacen.

"You're the best brother ever, you know that?" Jaina said as she hugged Jacen and kissed him on the cheek.

"I know, I know," he said with sarcastic bravado. "So, c'mon, let's get you back to Mister Handsome and Dull for your wedding."

Jaina lightly punched her brother on the arm, but they laughed it off as they turned to leave and lock the room. They then headed down the corridor for the turbolift that would take them to the Jedi Temple's hangar bay.

Later, once they were in the corridor, not only were they greeted by their parents, aunt, and uncle, but also Garis Boric.

"Hey, Garis," Jacen said as he and Jaina approached the _Solo Quest_, which the aforementioned party where gathered before. "I wanna tell you again, thank you for helping Jaina and I through that experience sharing. I'm honestly not sure if we could have made it if it weren't for you; Jaina and I owe both owe you a great deal."

Garis nodded with an appreciative smile. "Well, if you feel as if you have a debt to pay, Jedi Solo-"

"Please, it's Jacen," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Jacen," Garis acknowledged with a nod. "If you don't mind, may I accompany you and your sister back to the Unknown Regions?"

"Uhh..." Jacen looked at his aunt and uncle.

"It's okay, Jacen," Luke said. "We've given Garis permission to go, if you agree, that is."

"Well, then," Jacen said as he redirected his attention to Garis. "I suppose you could accompany Jaina and I back to Csilla."

"Thank you," Garis said. He then followed the Solo twins up the lowered ramp of the _Solo Quest_.

.

After the _Quest_ had fallen into hyperspace for the Unknown Regions from Denon, Jacen, Jaina, and Garis headed out of the cockpit. Jaina went to go and meditate, as she had learned from her brother's experiences, in Jacen's cabin, where she used his knowledge to open up one of the five foldout beds that wasn't the bed already laying out in the room. She sat there and began to calm herself and center herself in the Force.

Meanwhile, Jacen and Garis headed over to the galley, where the former poured himself and the latter a cup of caf each. They sat at one of the three tables in the galley and had their first sip of the steaming brew.

"Delicious," Garis complimented as he set the cup down. "And, again, thank you for allowing me to come with you and Jaina to the Unknown Regions, Jacen."

Jacen then set his own cup down on the table. "It's no problem, Garis. So, I suppose you came along because you wanted to talk to me. I got the distinct impression that you were kind of a big fan of mine."

"Something like that," Garis admitted. "Ever since I heard about the Jedi Order's philosophy of the Unifying Force, I had been greatly fascinated by this view. I felt that it was a more personally liberating ideal than that espoused by the likes of Master Durn back on Nam Chorios."

"Yes, I remember Master Durn's objections to this philosophy, just as I remembered the objections of most, if not all, of the other Force sects that I've visited in my travels," Jacen said. "You know, I don't recall you on Nam Chorios during my time there."

"That was because I was sequestered in one of the other Theran convents on Nam Chorios," Garis explained. "Interestingly enough, I was placed there before you had come to visit - when word got out that you were coming to Nam Chorios three years ago - and I was taken back to continue my training under Master Durn after you left."

"You don't think this was a coincidence," Jacen said. "Even by the will of the Force, you don't think this was a coincidence." It wasn't a question.

Garis shook his head. "If I may, I'd like to tell you a little more of my backstory than Master Skywalker may have told you."

Jacen waved. "Go right ahead."

"When I was old enough to realize that I had Force-potential," Garis began, "it was right when I had accidentally caused a minor Force-storm."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jacen said. He knew that without the reflective abilities of Nam Chorios's native tsils, improper Force use could endanger others. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Thankfully, no," Garis said. "Just some small property damage that the Theran Listeners were willing to pay for. In exchange, however, I had to join them, if for no other reason than to shield my powers from causing anymore Force storms. There was also the option of me simply leaving Nam Chorios to join the Jedi Order or any of the other Force sects out there. But my parents were avid supporters of the Listeners, and I was highly interested in learning their ways, so I chose them.

"As I grew older, I became one of their star pupils. I pretty much mastered their ways and abilities, and impressed even some of my harshest tutors. I rose in their ranks and became one of the youngest Listeners at sixteen."

"Impressive," Jacen said with raised eyebrows.

"Yet, even with my successes," Garis continued, "I still felt that something was... missing. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that something was missing. And then I heard about the Jedi Order's philosophy of the Unifying Force after the Yuuzhan Vong War ended, and I realized what I was missing: fluidity. A chance to explore myself in ways that went beyond the rigid practices and standards that were expected in sects like the Listeners. And after I learned that you were the one who brought about this new ideology of the Force to the Jedi, you became one of my heroes."

Jacen blushed. "I'm flattered. But I take it that your masters and fellow Listeners didn't take well to how you wanted to pursue your life," he guessed.

"They didn't," Garis said. "I suppose that's why they separated me from you; so that I wouldn't be further influenced by your presence."

"But that didn't stop you from being exiled from the Listeners later on," Jacen said.

"I knew that it was against our laws to help my fellow Listener do what he did with his sister," Garis said. "And I knew that if I were to have helped him, who wishes to remain anonymous, out with his actions, I would have been exiled had we both been found out. But I couldn't in good conscious turn him down; he and his sister both wanted this badly, and I felt like it was the right thing to do. I was emboldened by the message which you gave that changed your Order, and that was what went through my mind that convinced me that I had to allow them to share their pain with each other.

"Of course, we were all caught later on, and my friend and I were both exiled for our blasphemy. But at the same time, it felt freeing to finally venture out and see the rest of the galaxy; and to be accepted as one of the Jedi."

"I'm glad you finally found your place here, Garis," Jacen said. "But tell me, why didn't you simply leave Nam Chorios for the Jedi once you heard about our new philosophy?"

"Because it was still my home," Garis said. "And I didn't know how I could leave without feeling torn up inside about leaving."

"Did you feel torn up when you finally did leave?"

"I did," Garis answered. "But at the same time, it felt so liberating. I don't miss the more restrictive rules and laws of the Listeners, but I do miss home, for all of its flaws in climate and those damn drochs. But I am learning to accept Denon as my new home, as the home of the Jedi Order, even if I'm to be sent off to missions across the galaxy. And it feels so much more freeing for it; and, what's more, the Masters Skywalker are both telling me that I'm doing well so far as an apprentice."

Jacen placed a hand on Garis's own. "I'm happy to hear that, Garis. I think you'll make a wonderful Knight one day; and maybe even a Master, too."

"I hope so, as well," Garis said. "And I'd be happy to be your apprentice so that you can become a Master one day, Jacen."

Jacen's eyes widened in surprise before he smoothly turned it into a harmlessly sarcastic reply. "Well, I'm not that kinda girl who's willing to fall head over heels like that, Garis."

Garis laughed. "I heard about how powerful you were, Jacen. About your ability to create chemicals and other substances from your own body. It's absolutely fascinating. You must show me one day so I can learn it, too."

"I suppose Master Mara told you about my ability?" Jacen asked.

Garis shook his head. "It was Master Luke who did."

Aunt Mara must have told Uncle Luke, Jacen thought. "And he suggested that you make this offer to me?"

"If you've decided to change your mind," Garis elaborated.

Jacen shook his head without hesitation. "I'm sorry, Garis, but like I told Master Mara, I'm not interested in becoming a Master. Even though I'll be more of a quote-unquote 'active Jedi,' I'm still interested in learning more about myself than anything else."

Garis sighed before looking down at his cooling cup of caf. "It's a shame, if you ask me," he said once he looked back up to Jacen. "It would have been refreshing to have better learned from you, especially after the teachers I've had in the Jedi Temple."

Jacen looked more carefully at Garis. "I thought Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara said you were doing well as an apprentice."

Garis nodded. "I am. But the likes of Masters Katarn and Hamner, who are more skeptical of the Unifying Force as our philosophy, are more critical of my adherence to it."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jacen said. "But again, I'm simply not interested in taking on the role of Jedi Master, even for someone like you, Garis. At least... not now. I still have my doubts about my abilities and skills in the Force."

For a moment, Garis only looked blankly back at Jacen. Then he spoke. "Well, thank you for at least considering, Jacen." He then stood up, taking his cup of caf, and headed out of the galley toward the _Solo Quest_'s guest cabin.

Jacen grimaced. "Look, Garis, if it's any consolation, I think you'll find the Master that will suit you. And you might even make a great Master yourself one day."

Jacen said this as Garis approached the threshold out of the galley. The younger man stopped when he heard those words and turned back to flash a small smile at Jacen. "I hope so, too, Jacen." And then he turned back and completed his exit.

Thus, Jacen was left sighing against his caf cup in a sort of regret for turning Garis down like that.

.

Several more jumps later, the _Quest_ was now in the Unknown Regions. A few more jumps into that, the ship was hailed by a Zonama Sekotan star yacht.

In the pilot seat, alone with no one else with him, Jacen activated his comm's reply. "This is Captain Jacen Solo of the _Solo Quest_. How may I help you?"

"Jacen," the familiar voice of Danni Quee replied. "May I board your ship? We need to talk."

Jacen froze for a moment. He hoped against hope that what Danni just said didn't imply the age-old followup conversation that would most likely end in tears for one or both parties and neither seeing the other on good terms ever again.

"Sure, Danni," Jacen found himself saying. "Just dock as before."

After Danni docked her yacht's airlock with the _Quest_'s, and she boarded the YT-1300 in her spacesuit, she was greeted not only by Jacen, but also Jaina and Garis, who seemed confused as to what was going on.

"Hi, Danni," Jacen said once the blonde scientist had her space helmet off. "You remember Jaina, right?"

"How could I forget? Hi, Jaina," Danni said with a friendly, if awkward, smile. "How've you been?"

"Eh, long story, but I'm fine now," Jaina understated. "How've you been doing, Danni?"

"Pretty well, I'd say," Danni said. Jacen could tell by the tone of her voice that was clearly uncomfortable with having Jaina and this other man she didn't know with her and Jacen.

"Oh, and this is Jedi apprentice Garis Boric," Jacen introduced. "He helped Jaina and I go through a very hard time. Garis, this is Danni Quee."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Garis said pleasantly as he stuck out his hand for Danni to shake.

"Likewise," Danni said as she engaged in the handshake.

"I recognized you from the mnemotherapy session that I witnessed Jacen and Jaina go through," Garis said. "He remembers you quite fondly, it seems."

"Thank you, Garis," Jacen said. "But I think Danni and I need to talk privately."

"My apologies," Garis said. "I'll take my leave." He turned and headed back to his guest cabin.

"I guess that means me, too?" Jaina asked her brother.

He gave her a kind grin. "Yes."

"Can't blame ya," Jaina said before she, too, took her leave. "It's been nice seeing you again, Danni."

"It's been nice seeing you again, too, Jaina," Danni acknowledged with a polite nod.

Once Jaina was gone, an awkward silence passed between Jacen and Danni, which included Danni clearing her throat and Jacen looking down at his boots to kick at a rock that wasn't there.

He sighed and looked back up to his lover in dread. "So... what was it that you wanted to talk to me about, Danni?"

Danni sighed like her lover. "I guess I'll just come right out and say it.

"I'm pregnant."

Jacen's eyes widened while the rest of his face remained the same, and the only thing that he could say was, "Oh."

Danni nodded. "I sensed that you were coming back here, so I took this yacht, by Magister Hal's permission, and I came to tell you."

"Oh," Jacen said, unsure of what else he could say.

"Jacen," Danni began, "I wanna let you know that I am perfectly capable of taking care of our baby on my own. So you don't have to stay with me on Zonama. You can continue exploring the galaxy as a Jedi and learn more about yourself. And you can even visit us from time to time, when you can. However, at any point, you're more than welcome to stay with me on Zonama to help raise our child. So, Jacen, what do you want to do now? Don't worry, take your time. We're in no rush."

Indeed, Jacen was slow and hesitant in his response. It was still settling in his mind that he was going to be a father, and he didn't know how to take it. Should he be happy about this? Or should he feel irresponsible and somehow ashamed? Yes, Danni did make herself clear that she could raise the child on her own, and that she wouldn't prevent him from seeing or visiting the child.

But somehow, a part of him also wanted to be with Danni and their offspring; to be on Zonama to raise the child and teach him or her the ways of the Force. That part of him was what was calling the other part of him, the one that wanted to explore more about himself and his relationship to the Force, as well as the Force itself, selfish. On the other hand, as he reminded himself for the second time, Danni did say that she could handle the child on her own...

And then the part of him that said that he was being selfish in preparing himself to turn Danni down said, _What, first, you're turning down the position of Jedi Master, now you won't even take part in raising the child?_

_Ranks don't matter_, the part in him that wanted to explore the Force replied. _I learned that in my fight with Onimi. An apprentice can be just as powerful in the Force as a Master, if not more._

_What about the skill, the honing of that power?_

_All Jedi are individuals unto themselves. How they learn themselves and how they connect with the Force will always be different, and rank cannot, and should not, be considered a real factor of power or even skill._ With that thought, Jacen, for some reason, felt regret. He thought about Garis, and his dreams of being a Master. While the lad knew about the Unifying Force philosophy, Jacen wondered if Garis would ever truly comprehend how insignificant the titles that rank provided. Come to think of it, he wondered if Uncle Luke, Aunt Mara, and the other Masters on the Council would comprehend that...

_Don't distract yourself from what really bothers you. You, who had managed to get the entire Jedi Order to shunt their traditions by the end of the last war, are now falling prey to the notions of galactic tradition of raising a family. Oh, yes, there are other factors, such as an instinctive desire to protect and raise your young. Yet, you're still torn up about what you should do, because you want to help Danni raise this child.  
_

_She offers only to help raise the child. _Offers_, not demands. If I agree to help her, I will only be pulled back from understanding who I really am, my relationship to the Force, and the Force itself. I can still visit the child from time to time, Danni isn't denying me that_.

In spite of her stated patience, however, Danni blurted out, "Well? What's it going to be?"

Jacen sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I think I'll just visit."

"Suit yourself," Danni ultimately said. Her tone was objective, yet Jacen couldn't help but notice an undercurrent of resentment in her tone. The resentment seemed very similar to the attitude she displayed to him when they first met since the end of the war.

With that, she turned and headed back through the airlocks, closing and locking them up along the way. Jacen sighed again and looked to the floor for several minutes, even as the Sekotan yacht disengaged from the _Quest_ and promptly launched for hyperspace.

And in the yacht, as it streaked through the blue tunnel of light-speed, it was only then that Danni began to cry.


	19. Chapter 19

The rest of the trip to Csilla was uneventful, which allowed Jacen to continue contemplating whether or not he did the right thing in turning both Garis and Danni down. Sitting in the pilot seat, he remained utterly silent and unmoving until the hyperdrive counter beeped to let him know that it was time to drop out of light-speed.

Minutes after the _Solo Quest_ dropped out of hyperspace and subsequently docked in the underground city of Cshanalla, the YT-1300's boarding ramp lowered and Jaina was the first one to run out and hug the expectant Jag. The two of them followed up their embrace by kissing each other as Jag's family watched from behind him and Jacen and Garis watched from behind Jaina at the foot of the ramp.

When Jaina and Jag were done, the former fished in her pocket and produced the rings that Jacen returned to her. Jag slipped on his own ring while Jaina did the same for hers.

"So I guess the wedding's back on?" Jag asked with a flirtatious grin.

"You know it," Jaina replied. "Same time, same place." She then turned away to face her brother, still waiting with Garis. "Oh, and, Jacen, before we say goodbye, I have to ask, when are you going to tell Mom and Dad that you got Danni Quee knocked up?"

Jacen grimaced as Garis looked at his idol in surprised confusion. Jag and his family, meanwhile, mimicked Garis's state.

"I guess you peeked in on the conversation through our twin bond?" Jacen asked his sister.

"Sorry about that, but I was rather curious," Jaina said. "You can remind me about violating your privacy via empathic connection later. Right now, I'm interested as to how you're going to broach the subject to our parents."

"Why should I?" Jacen asked. "They really don't need to know. Danni and I had our agreement, and there's really no reason why anyone else should get involved in this matter."

"Fair enough," Jaina replied evenly. "But, tell me, Jacen, for a Jedi, why are you so apt at dodging responsibilities nowadays?"

"Oh, because I turned down Danni's offer to help raise our child, and because I turned down Garis's offer to train him, too?" Jacen argued. "You know, since I've returned from my sojourn, I've done some pretty good things so far."

"Yeah, saving Raynar, helping catch Nom Anor, preventing Aunt Mara from killing him, taking down the True Victory Party while protecting Nom Anor, delivering him to Zonama Sekot, and especially saving me from PTSD," Jaina acknowledged. "Fine, you got a good argument there. In fact, that actually makes you turning both Danni and Garis down a little more reprehensible, if you ask me."

"Really?" Jacen asked as he crossed his arms. "Why?"

By now, the Fels and even Garis were growing a little awkward in their attitude.

"Because you haven't realized yet that your sojourn is over," Jaina explained. "It was over the minute you decided to help Raynar. Now you're back, and because you've made those decisions to adopt those responsibilities, Jacen, you have a moral obligation to yourself to do all that you can with your powers. You know it as well as I do, because of what we experienced in that mnemotherapy session, that you could never experience that state of oneness when you killed Onimi ever again."

"But I did," Jacen pointed out as he uncrossed his arms, letting them drop back to his sides. "I did it with you."

"Yes, we did," Jaina agreed. "Yet that was just a reliving of that same experience; you can't replicate it as a new event for yourself. And you've learned a lot of things in your travels since then, all the while knowing that you could only be the best, yet still striving for more.

"Jacen, as much as I know that you want that, and as bad as it might be for me to say this, but you have to settle for the best that you can be as you are now. You're a Master now, and you know it in your heart; all you need is just for Uncle Luke to make that official for public record. I know that you feel as if you must follow his word that you must do what's best for yourself, or what you think is best for yourself, but you know what? You're not doing it yet, and deep down, your conscious is telling you that you're not really living up to your full potential."

Jacen raised an eyebrow. "So you're telling me what I should do, huh? What if I decided that I wanted to forgo any possibility of being a Master and return to Zonama and Danni to raise our child?"

"Jacen, if you do that, you'll at least be making some kinda personally responsible decision as a Jedi," Jaina said. "So make one: either agree to a position on the Jedi Council, or go be with Danni and help her raise your child."

Jacen was silent for a moment. "Goodbye, Jaina." He turned to head back up the ramp, Garis following.

"The wedding's next month, two days," Jaina called. "Have a safe trip." Her tone was utterly neutral as she said those last four words.

.

After the _Quest_ was back in hyperspace, Garis, in the copilot seat, turned to Jacen and said, "So what have you decided on, Jacen?"

Jacen looked at the younger man with something resembling resignation.

"I think I'll choose being a Master, Garis," Jacen said.

"So... does that mean...?"

"Yes, Garis," Jacen answered. "If Master Luke permits it, I'll be your Master. And I think it's obvious that he'll permit it."

Garis's fairly blank expression brightened into a glowing smile. "That's great. Really, that's great, Jace- Uh, I mean, Master Solo."

Jacen smirked. "Well, if you're going to be my apprentice, Garis, I suppose I should start teaching you some of the techniques I've learned. Particularly when it comes to making chemical compounds. But we'll start off light; we'll have you do some healing emollients first."

"Very well," Garis said.

"But before we do that, let's lay down a ground rule," Jacen said. "One: don't call me Master Solo until after I've actually been officially promoted to that title. Second, after I am promoted to that, you'll only call me that on formal occasions, such as when we're around other Masters or Jedi we don't have a rapport with as a duo. When it's just the two of us, then you can still call me Jacen."

"Understood, Jacen," Garis said.

Jacen gave the old Solo grin. "Good. Now, we got another couple o' hours or so before we have to hurry back here and drop out for a course recalculation. So let's head into my cabin so you can start on your training."

"Yes, Jacen," Garis said as he stood up to follow his Master to his quarters.

.

Following the _Solo Quest_'s return to Denon a day later, Jacen and Garis were met by the former's parents in the Jedi Temple's hangar bay. They were both smiling at Jacen.

"Come on, Jacen," Han said. "Your Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara want to see you."

_I wonder if you'd be smiling like that after learning about Danni and me_, Jacen thought. He kept that hidden from both his mother and Garis, lest the latter wonder why he was hiding it from Leia; of course, Jacen knew that the younger man was smart enough to find out for his own without revealing, but Jacen still felt that he had to be cautious. He wasn't sure if he wanted to reveal to his parents that he impregnated Danni. Evidently, Jaina, for all her violating his personal privacy and the audacity to tell him what he should do with his powers, at least had the decency to not tell their mother and father that they were going to be illegitimate grandparents.

Once Jacen and Garis joined them, they all turned and headed for the exit of the hangar that would take them into the rest of the Temple.

A couple of minutes later, they all reached a set of double doors which Han opened. Jacen could see nothing but darkness inside.

"Go in, Jacen," Leia said.

Nodding and smiling at the others for what would be the last time as a Jedi Knight, he turned and walked in. When Leia closed the door behind him, Jacen was temporarily bathed in complete darkness.

But that darkness only lasted for five seconds before the entirety of the room was lit up by blue and green lightsabers in a circle around him.

Jacen grinned in pride as he looked out to the Masters that surrounded him; Kyle Katarn, Saba Sebatyne, Kenth Hamner, Tresina Lobi, Kyp Durron, Octa Ramis, and even the Masters Solusar, Kam and Tionne, who normally bore responsibility for the Jedi Academy on Ossus, were present. And rounding all of them out were, of course, Jacen's aunt and uncle, Mara and Luke.

And Luke stood directly ahead of Jacen, his green lightsaber raised in a horizontal arc just as all of the other Masters held their weapons. The most powerful Master in the room, rivaled only by Jacen, approached the soon-to-be youngest member on the Council.

When Luke finally reached Jacen, he said, "Jedi Knight Jacen Solo, you are hereby recognized for not only your skills, abilities, and powers in the Force, but also for the great deeds that you have committed in the short span of your life so far. However, it does not end there; no, your knowledge, the knowledge that you have accumulated from your sojourn, which was spearheaded by your oneness with the Force that ultimately ended the Yuuzhan Vong War, has made this Council see that you would be a valuable Master.

"But most importantly, above all else, you have given the New Jedi Order its own voice with the Unifying Force. With this ideology, in spite of whatever individual doubts that members of this Council may hold against it, the Unifying Force has shown us that we must continue to strive against our own imperfections, and at times learn to live with them, in our never-ending quest to do good for the galaxy. And, on a more personal level, Jacen, I owe you my life when you used the knowledge that you acquired from Vergere to heal me from the poison of the Yuuzhan Vong's false Supreme Overlord.

"But this whole ceremony may very well be for nothing if you say no, Jacen. And we are all prepared for that. So, do you accept a position as Master?"

With only a few seconds of hesitation, Jacen said, "I accept the position as Jedi Master."

"Then, henceforth, you will be Jedi Master Jacen Solo."

As Luke said this, he lowered his blade first near Jacen's right shoulder, then lifted it to hover near his left shoulder. Luke then withdrew the blade from his nephew and deactivated the lightsaber at the same time as every other Master in the room, once again casting them all in complete darkness.

That darkness, however, was once again vanquished as the normal lights were flicked right back on, and every Master in the room clapped for Jacen's new position as Jedi Master. A few seconds later, the doors opened, and Han, Leia, and Garis walked in, with Leia rushing in to hug her son in cheer. Han held back and waited for his wife to withdraw before she said, "Oh, I'm so proud of you, Jacen! And I'm so glad that you didn't turn it down."

"Me, too, Mom," Jacen replied.

"Congrats, kid," Han said as he placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "And like your mother said, smart move not turning it down."

By now, the applause from the Masters died out completely, and they filed out of the room.

"Thanks, Dad," Jacen responded. "I figured it might finally be a good idea to actually put some responsibility into the Order that I helped bring the Unifying Force into."

"It's too bad that your sister couldn't be here, though," Leia said. "We tried to get her on commlink, but you know how it is with communications in the Unknown Regions."

"Yeah, even the Esfandia relay station gets some hiccups here and there," Han followed.

"It's not a problem," Jacen said. "During this time, Jaina was here with me; she felt this happen in our renewed twin bond. She was here in spirit more literally than figuratively."

"I wish the same could be said for Anakin," Leia said with regret in her tone. "He could have been a great Master, too."

Han gently pulled his wife in for a comforting hug at the memory of their lost son.

"I'm sure he would have," Jacen agreed with his own tinge of sorrow. "But he'll always be here with us in one way or another. So, wherever he is, I'm sure he knows about my promotion here."

"I think so, too, Jacen," Leia said.

"Yeah, me, too," Han followed.

There was a brief silence between the four of them - including Garis, who respectfully stood back from the family gathering - before Jacen said, "Uh, Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you."

"Oh, yeah?" Han asked. "What is it?"

"Well, it may sour the mood that we had going on with me being a Jedi Master and all, but..."

"But what?" Han asked, his cheery demeanor now becoming concerned.

"Well, do you remember Danni Quee?"

.

Even with his Force-senses alerting him to any potential danger, Luke was still surprised as Han barged into his office just as he was sitting down in his desk.

"Luke," Han said once he firmly placed his hands on his brother-in-law's desktop, "you take Jacen's rank of Master away _right now_!"

"Han, please," Leia said as she finally came into view over her husband's shoulder.

Han held up his hand in front of his wife, not taking his eyes off Luke. Leia sighed in irritation as her husband continued ranting.

"Recall all the Masters right this instant, go back into that room, and reverse the whole thing until Jacen's a Knight again." Then, without missing a beat, he said, "Actually make him into an apprentice again, because what he did after delivering that slime Nom Anor to Zonama Sekot was one of the dumbest things that a _teenager_ could do, never mind a full-grown man!"

"Han, this is ridiculous," Leia interjected.

"No, no," Han said as he finally looked back at his wife, "what _is_ ridiculous is Jacen sticking his-"

"Han, calm down," Luke said. "What exactly did Jacen do that should make me reconsider my promoting him to Master?"

"Well, do you remember Danni Quee?" Han asked.

"Well, sure, I do," Luke answered.

"Well, I answered that question with a, 'Yeah.' You know what his answer was?"

Before Luke could make a suggestion, Han interrupted him by saying, "In his exact words, he said, 'Well, uh... I kinda... im-pregnated her.'"

"I see," Luke said. "Well, I'd certainly like to talk to him about that."

"And do what exactly?" Han asked. "Slap him on the wrist? Luke, you can't just let him go around the galaxy knockin' women up! When a man and woman have children, they need to provide for those children! They need to dedicate and sacrifice their lives for those children! You can't just abandon them! I mean, sure, Leia and I weren't always there for the twins and Anakin, but we at least made sure they were safe with Winter or something!"

Luke all but ignored his brother-in-law as he pulled out his personal commlink and dialed Jacen's frequency.

"Yes?" Jacen's voice finally came.

"Jacen, do you have any idea-"

"Han, be quiet," Luke said. "Let me talk to him." He refocused his attention on the commlink. "Jacen, is it true that you impregnated Danni Quee?"

"Yes," Jacen replied in a dull tone.

"And have you made any arrangements regarding this matter?" Luke asked.

"We have," Jacen answered. "She said that she's perfectly capable of raising the child on her own, and that I can visit her and our baby on Zonama at anytime. She also offered to stay with her on Zonama to help raise the child. I accepted to just visit from time to time; besides, now that I'm a Master, I doubt I'd be able to just shirk this responsibility to go and help raise my kid."

"You should, you know!" Han exclaimed. "You should drop that title of Jedi Master and-"

"Han, enough!" Luke interrupted. "Leia, would you please take your husband outside?"

"My pleasure," Leia said as she used the Force to begin dragging him back out. Han didn't say another word; he just fumed as his wife dragged him out the door, and only resumed his ranting once the door to Luke's office was closed.

With no more foreseeable interruptions, Luke returned his attention to his conversation with Jacen again. "Thank you for letting me know about this, along with your parents, Jacen. Unlike your father, I'm willing to let you keep the rank and title of Master, so long as you agree to this term.

"As a Jedi Master, you have certain responsibilities and obligations to the Order now. However, as a father myself, I am more than willing to allow you to see your child from time to time, as you promised Danni. So I will allow you to go to Zonama Sekot once every month. You will choose the time for which you'll be gone, spend your time with Danni and your child, and return to the Order for whatever responsibilities await you. You will, however, have to agree to shirk even that should the Order face any emergency or crisis that requires our collective attention. Do you understand?"

"Completely, Master Skywalker," Jacen replied.

"Very well," Luke said. "Would you like to schedule a time for this month for which you can see Danni?"

Jacen hesitated. "But I already have for this month."

"Indeed, you have. But I'm willing to be generous. Again, would you like to schedule a time for this month for which you can see Danni?"

"Uh... sure," Jacen said. "And I can even continue training Garis- I mean, Apprentice Boric along the way. Would it be okay if I depart back for Zonama today?"

"The sooner, the better, I say," Luke said. "But before you go, would you like anyone else to know about why you would be making these monthly sabbaticals to the Unknown Regions?"

"I think I'll let my father do that for me," Jacen said. "He's pretty much announcing it to the entire Temple already."

Luke couldn't help but smirk as Han seemed to continue in his rant in the corridor outside Luke's office. "Very well. Have a safe trip back to Zonama. And may the Force be with you, Garis, Danni, and your child."

"Thank you, Uncle Luke," Jacen replied. "And good luck getting my dad to calm down before he blows a gasket."

Luke laughed mirthfully as he deactivated his commlink.


	20. Chapter 20

In the Temple's hangar bay, the _Solo Quest_ had finished her refueling, and Jacen and Garis approached the ship for their second return trip to the Unknown Regions.

"I'm just betting that when I return to Denon again, I'm goin' back to the Unknown Regions again for some reason," Jacen commented to Garis as they approached the _Quest_. "This is, like, the third time I've gone there in the past several days."

"Do you think it is the will of the Force that you keep returning there?" Garis asked. His tone was half-lighthearted, half-curious.

Jacen shrugged. "I don't sense its hand in this. But then again, I don't believe too much in coincidences."

"Understandable," Garis replied.

"Jacen!"

Jacen and Garis turned around at the sound of Leia's voice; Jacen's mother was approaching the two men at a brisk walk.

"Hey, Mom. What is it?"

When Leia finally stopped before her son, she sighed. "Jacen, before you go, I must ask: do you really want to do this?"

Jacen raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Yes, of course, Mom. Why do you ask?"

"Because when you told your father and I about Danni carrying your child," Leia began, "you seemed... ashamed. As if you didn't really like Danni, or... had relations with a woman you didn't really know or care about."

It was Jacen's turn to sigh. "I'm not ashamed of what Danni and I did, Mom. It's just that..." His sigh returned as he trailed off.

"It's just what, Jacen?" Leia asked.

"It's just that... Well, I guess I feel somewhat ashamed of myself. Not for what Danni and I had, but... I feel sort of guilty for turning her down. Because I do want to be with her and our child, but at the same time, how could I do that and help continue to guide the Jedi Order? Yes, I can visit her, and that's what I'm doing, but... can I really be a father?

"I mean, as I'm thinking about it, it's still sinking into my brain that _I am going to be a father_. And I don't even know what that really means for myself, Mom! Danni comes and drops this bombshell on me, and I don't know how to react! What does that mean for my future as a Jedi? What does that mean for my future as a person in general?"

Leia placed a hand on her son's shoulder in assurance. "You may not always be there for Danni and your child, but to me, one thing is for certain: that whatever problems you'll face as a father, and as a Jedi, you'll overcome them. But that's up to you as to how you want to overcome those problems."

Jacen nodded in appreciation. "Thanks, Mom."

Leia returned the nod. "Oh, and before I forget, your father wanted me to pass on a few parting words."

"Where is he now?" Jacen asked.

"He's in the medbay," Leia answered.

Jacen's expression flared to concern. "Is he all right?"

Leia chuckled. "He's fine. So far, anyway. The healers in the lab are monitoring him for a potential heart attack after his ranting and raving."

"Figures," Jacen replied with a grin. "So what did he say?"

"He said that before you go to Zonama Sekot," Leia began, "stop by at a jewelry shop here on Denon, buy a nice ring for Danni, and ask her to marry you."

Jacen laughed. "I don't think Uncle Luke would appreciate me spending some of the Order's funds on a ring that Danni may very well reject."

"What makes you think she will, Jacen?" Leia asked.

Jacen was slightly taken aback by his mother's question before he recovered himself. "Well, because she and I both know that it's just not gonna work. I won't always be there, as you said, and plus, we haven't spent enough time together for me to marry her. Just because she's pregnant, that doesn't give a good basis for a long-lasting marriage. We're not some backwater civilization that still believes in that kind of thing, Mom."

"No, we don't," Leia agreed evenly. "Take care of yourself, Jacen."

"Goodbye, Mom," Jacen replied with an appreciative smile. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, then turned and led Garis up the now-lowered boarding ramp of the _Solo Quest_.

Once they were in the cockpit and sat in their expected pilot and copilot seats, Jacen pressed a button that raised the ramp before he continued with the ship's pre-heating.

"Would you ever want to marry Danni Quee?" Garis asked his Master.

Jacen stopped what he was doing and looked at his apprentice blankly. "If I knew that Danni and I both wanted it, and that we knew what we were doing."

"Knew what you were doing?" Garis echoed. "It seemed pretty clear to me that you two knew what you were doing."

"Danni may know," Jacen said. "But I'm even less sure of myself." He returned to his start-up sequence of the _Quest_.

Minutes later, the ship had left the Temple's hangar bay, soared to Denon's skies to breach its atmosphere, broke out of its gravity well, and launched for hyperspace.

And that was all that ran through Jacen's mind as he tried to distance his thoughts away from his future with Danni as much as possible; ironic, since he was only getting closer to her.

.

Two days later, during which Jacen and Garis meditated together to better understand each other's strengths and weaknesses as Master and apprentice, the _Quest_ had returned to Zonama Sekot. Jacen placed his ship into a locked orbit around the living world, and then he and Garis were taken down to the surface by a Ferroan named Aken.

As Aken took the Jedi down toward Zonama, Jacen let out a hard breath, as if he were anxious about the Ferroan's careful piloting of her Sekotan shuttle down through the atmosphere.

Garis, seated next to him in the shuttle's passenger cabin, grabbed his Master's hand in reassurance.

"It's okay, Jacen," the apprentice said in a soothing tone. "It's all right."

Jacen nodded absently. "Thank you, Garis."

Soon, they were past the atmosphere and soared down through the clear skies for a grassy field a short distance away from what Jacen recognized as La'okio. He couldn't help but notice Garis's look of awe and inspiration; he was feeling the teeming life that coursed throughout the planet.

Finally, the shuttle landed, and when all three of them were out of the ship, the vessel sunk into the ground, much to Garis's concern.

"Don't worry," Aken said to the apprentice, noting his disbelief. "It's just being stored by Sekot. This is her method of maintaining the security of her creations."

"It's an interesting method, I'll say," Garis said. "Just as the rest of this planet is. Ja-" When Garis reminded himself of Aken's presence, and that now was the time to be formal, he corrected himself. "Master Solo, this world is beautiful in every single way. How would you ever be able to leave this place to begin with? How _could_ you be able to leave a place like this?"

Jacen grimaced. While he knew that Garis didn't mean it, he couldn't help but think to himself, _That's right, Jacen. How could you leave Zonama and Danni?_ For a moment, he completely forgot why he even made that galaxywide sojourn in the first place.

Garis noted his Master's negative expression and quickly said, "My apologies, Master."

Jacen patted his apprentice's shoulder. "It's fine, Garis."

A second later, an organic landspeeder rose up out of the ground, and Aken entered it in the driver's seat. Jacen and Garis filed into the backseat and waited as the Ferroan drove them toward La'okio.

A couple of minutes later, they had entered the village, and Jacen and Garis followed Aken's lead by getting out of the vehicle. The speeder then sunk back into the ground, like the shuttle before it.

"From here on," Aken said to the two Jedi, "wherever you want to go, you will walk." She pointed at Garis. "You. A guide will soon show up and lead you to your lodging for the time of your stay."

"What about Master Solo?" Garis asked.

"He knows where to go," Aken answered. She turned and headed away, most likely to return to her hut to attend to whatever chores she had to accomplish.

"I can sense her, Garis," Jacen elaborated. He didn't have to tell his apprentice who he was referring to. "You stay here and wait for your guide."

"Very well, Master Solo. I mean, Jacen. Oh, wait, since we're on a living planet that knows everything that's going on-"

"Relax, Garis," Jacen said with a smile and a wave of his hand. "Sekot doesn't care much about that kind of thing."

"Oh, okay then," Garis said with an understanding nod.

Jacen flashed his apprentice a Solo grin, then turned and headed off.

A short while later, Garis was met by a male Yuuzhan Vong with an eye-patch over one of his eyes.

"Hello, my name is Nom Anor," the alien introduced himself in a slightly miserable tone. "I will be your guide to your lodging, Jedi Apprentice Boric."

"Nom Anor?" Garis asked. "Weren't you the Yuuzhan Vong who-"

"Yes. Yes, I was." His tone didn't shift from its misery.

Garis's expression broke into a mirthful smile that turned into a laugh. "If I may say, this is incredibly funny." He continued laughing.

Nom Anor couldn't help but let a resentful growl escape his lips. Nevertheless, he swirled around, waved forward wordlessly, and marched off. Garis went on laughing as he followed the somewhat-disgraced Yuuzhan Vong.

.

It took Jacen only a few minutes to find Danni's lodge in the Yuuzhan Vong-Ferroan village, which had next to no residents on the roads right now. Dusk was now setting on this side of the planet, so everyone was just getting back to whatever job or set of chores they had set out to do to turn in for the day.

The blonde scientist was leaning against the threshold of her hut, staring back at Jacen expressionless. He couldn't even get a read on her emotions through the Force; she was keeping her feelings tightly bound to herself.

Still, that didn't stop Jacen from approaching her timidly.

"Hi," he said finally. His tone was uncertain and awkward.

"Hi," she replied with an unreadable tone. Jacen couldn't detect any undercurrents of any resentment or anger she might be feeling for him. "I heard that you were promoted to Jedi Master."

"I was," Jacen confirmed, still timid.

"Well, at least you finally committed to a long-term responsibility," Danni said, letting some resentment escape from her voice.

The comment stung Jacen. "I'm sorry," he said. "But, look, I can see you once every month. Uncle Luke is allowing it."

"Which means that you can't decide to be with me and our child even if you wanted to," Danni replied.

"Danni, I _do_ want to be with you and our child," Jacen said in a pleading tone. "But now that I'm a Jedi Master-"

"If you wanted to be with me," Danni said, "why didn't you decide that before you became a Master? What changed between my offer to you to stay with me and your promotion? Huh?!" She seemed to be on the verge of crying.

Jacen only dropped his mouth in speechlessness. He didn't know what to say; for a second, he thought about telling her that he was deluding himself into believing that he was still on his self-searching sojourn when it was long over. But even that seemed like a flimsy excuse in the face of Danni's anger.

"Jacen, I love you! How could you do this to me?! I want you, I _need_ you. You think I want to just see you for once a month for a day or so?"

"But you said that you didn't need me to help raise the child-"

"I don't need you like _that_, you-you... half-witted, scruffy-looking, nerfherder! How could you be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time? I need your emotional support, your love! And you denied me that chance to help raise our child because you wanted to explore more of yourself!

"Jacen, you know so much now! You've experienced so much! Why do you still feel like you need to know more, when all that really matters is who you love and who loves you! And that's me, and that's Jaina, and that's the rest of your friends and family! Yet you selfishly continued to pursue this feeling that you have to... be the Force itself or something like that! Can't you just learn to live and be satisfied with what you already have?!"

Jacen actually had to take a step back from Danni's rant, as if to distance himself away from it instead of her.

"No, no, you get back here," Danni nearly shouted. "You get back here, and you find out what you have to say to me. Don't worry, take your time. We're in no rush." In those last two sentences, Danni's voice was a mix of sarcasm and barely restrained fury.

As she fumed, Jacen began a mad scramble in his mind to try to find the right thing to say.

After what felt like an eternity, but which was only a quarter of a minute, Jacen finally said, "Danni... Uh... Do you want me to renounce my rank and title of Jedi Master to be with you?"

Danni now looked taken aback, as if he just suggested that he kill her and their child. "No!" she shrieked. "No, you keep that title, Jacen! You've earned it. Don't turn it down because of me! Don't you _dare_ turn it down because of me!"

"Then what do you want me to do?" Jacen asked, his tone now desperate. He sounded like a helpless child unable to satisfy an abusive parent, even if he was doing exactly what that parent was asking him to do. "All I _can_ do is visit you once a month!"

Danni, who now fell utterly silent, approached Jacen and whispered, "Then let's make it all count." She immediately wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply before pulling him into the hut. Once the door was closed and locked by Jacen, they immediately started taking their clothes, only taking their lips away from each other for that.

Over half an hour later did they finally finish this new bout of lovemaking, and Jacen and Danni lay on her bed, sweating and heaving from all the effort. Two minutes after their initial collapse, and their breathing became more regular, Jacen looked over at his lover.

"Hey. Wanna do that again?"

"Yeah," she whispered with an enthusiastic nod.

And without a second's hesitation, she jumped on him and they started the new bout of intercourse.

.

During Jacen and Danni's first bout of intercourse since seeing each other again, Garis's laughter over his guide's plight finally died down as he followed Nom Anor through the village.

However, their trek through the village was halted when Garis stopped to find a procession of meditating Yuuzhan Vong off in the large garden to their left. Nom Anor looked in the Jedi's direction, where Garis's gaze was riveted on a blonde woman who looked similar to Danni Quee but not enough to be a twin or a younger sister.

"Is that Tahiri Veila?" Garis asked Nom Anor as he pointed at her.

"It is," Nom Anor answered unenthusiastically. "You recognize the three scars on her forehead?"

"I do," Garis answered, still not taking his gaze away from the woman.

Tahiri's attention was nowhere close to concentrating on Garis or Nom Anor; instead, she wandered among the gathering of meditating Yuuzhan Vong and sparing each a glance, as if she were evaluating something in each individual.

"What is she doing?" Garis asked his guide.

"She is evaluating the progress that each Yuuzhan Vong in that circle is making in attaining Force-sensitivity," Nom Anor explained. "Sort of like how a teacher will go around a classroom during a test in one of your elementary or secondary schools."

"Shouldn't every Yuuzhan Vong be there?" Garis asked. "Shouldn't you be there?"

"This is a different class," Nom Anor stated. "Different groups of Yuuzhan Vong are taught by different people, such as former Eminence Harrar, who has mastered the Force now. These classes will grow, I imagine, as the next generation of Yuuzhan Vong arrive, and more of my people will attain Force-sensitivity until, eventually, our whole species reclaims the Force."

Soon, Tahiri returned to her spot at the opposite side of the circle that Garis and Nom Anor stood outside from and announced, "The evaluation is over! You will all return to your homes for rest, and tomorrow, you will each talk to me, by the order of my choosing, of how you fared in the evaluation. Class dismissed."

With that, all of the Yuuzhan Vong stood up from their spots and dispersed out of the circle to return to their huts for the night. Garis went through the circle, and the dispersing aliens paid no mind of his presence while Nom Anor rolled his one eye and followed the Jedi.

"Where do you think you are going?" the one-eyed Yuuzhan Vong asked.

Garis ignored him as he intercepted Tahiri.

"Hello," Garis said. "My name is Jedi Apprentice Garis Boric. And you must be Tahiri Veila, right?"

Tahiri was mildly confused. "Uh... sure. I'm sorry, may I ask why you're here?"

"Oh, my apologies," Garis said. "I'm the apprentice of Jacen Solo, who you may know."

"It's been years since I've last seen Jacen, but, yes, I know him," Tahiri said. "Is he on his way to becoming a Master if he's training you?"

"He's already a Master," Garis clarified.

"Oh. Well, good for him then. Is he on Zonama Sekot right now?"

"You don't know?" Garis asked.

Tahiri shook her head. "I don't pay too much to other people's Force-presences when I'm not teaching or evaluating a class these days. Is he here to see Danni?"

"Yes, he is," Garis confirmed.

"I suppose he's just visiting?"

"He is."

"Huh," was all Tahiri said about that. "Well, Apprentice Boric, it's been nice meeting you. But I should really turn in for the night." She made a move to pass Garis.

He blocked her way. "I'm very interested in talking to you."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I'd like to know a little bit about how you teach the Yuuzhan Vong to reclaim the Force, and all. It's one of the many things that fascinates me about your generation of Jedi, Master Solo among them."

"Well, I'm flattered," Tahiri said. "But I'm really not interested in talking tonight, Apprentice Boric. You seem like a really nice guy, but I just want to get back home, have dinner, and go to sleep." She moved past Garis, who didn't try to stop her this time.

"Oh," Garis said quietly to her retreating form. "Okay then."

Nom Anor then appeared beside Garis, grinning like the plotter he once was as he looked in the direction that the apprentice was staring at.

"If I may offer any advice about this," Nom Anor said, nearly startling Garis out of his reverie, "do not pursue any relationship with her. Even after all these years, she still cannot get over the death of her boyfriend, Anakin Solo, your Master's late brother."

"Whose death was your responsibility, I understand," Garis said as he glared daggers at Nom Anor.

The reluctant guide sneered. "Come on. Let's just get you to your lodge and be done with this." He turned and resumed his course for the lodge.

Garis reluctantly followed without another word.


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note: The first draft of this chapter had been written by my beta reader, Loteva, who, at my request, wrote what I hoped would better explore Jacen and Danni's relationship beyond the physical. Loteva, I can only hope that you like and appreciate the additions and alterations that I made to your draft.**

**And to NoImagination; I'd appreciate it if you set up an account so that I would be able to talk to you about how I can improve my portrayal of Jacen and Danni's relationship. This chapter was essentially created with you in mind, so I can't wait to read your thoughts on this one.  
**

Jacen couldn't sleep.

The night had fallen on this side of Zonama quite a long time and the inside of Danni's lodge was dark and quiet. By all accounts, Jacen should have been soundly asleep, tired and relaxed after the passionate love-making with the woman currently resting in his arms. However, the sleep effortlessly escaped from his grasp time and again. The Jedi didn't try to reach into the Force – the planet was so full of life, even at night, that it wouldn't help him to find the rest he was seeking. It would have, instead, pulled him into another of his contemplative and even more exhausting internal monologues; and while it may have sounded like a good idea to have something exhausting pull him back to sleep, it wasn't necessarily a good idea, in Jacen's mind, to have that kind of exhaustion lead him back into a peaceful slumber.

He imagined that, somehow, the contemplation that once plagued him when he learned of Danni's pregnancy would carry on into his dreams. He had a feeling that they would act as nightmare fuel, worse than any horror genre holodrama.

All Jacen could do in his situation was lay on his back and stare against the dark, organic ceiling above. The blanket of darkness covered his and Danni's nakedness as well as the actual cover over their bodies, but it didn't stop his other senses from heightening, save for his already-maximized Force-senses given the planet's flourishing life, as his sight lacked the stimuli. Jacen heard Danni's light breathing; he felt its soft puffing against his chest where her head was laying. He smelled the sweet scent of her hair and tasted the remnants of her on his tongue from the many kisses they had shared.

His thoughts meandered aimlessly, but always circled back to the uncertainty of the future.

Jedi Master Jacen Solo could do a lot of things – create chemical compounds from his body and from his immediate environment, manipulate lightning energy in a way unlike a Sith or Dark Jedi, flow-walk – but never before had he felt as powerless as he did now. Events had spun out of his control and he found himself confused with the abrupt shifts in his life.

Even though he made up with Danni, how long would the peace and contentment between them last? And Jacen wasn't even thinking about whether or not another crisis would spring up that would require the attention of the Jedi to stop. No, he was simply thinking about whether or not his relationship with Danni would last even if peace and prosperity would reign for the rest of the galaxy's existence.

The fear crept up on Jacen as he began theorizing about the future. What if Danni would feel disappointed with how little he could give her and their unborn child? What if he would be a bad father simply in that regard? Could he even consider _himself_ to be a good father if Danni didn't? What if this relationship, this family, was going to fail because of him?

Jacen moved slightly due to his uneasy thoughts. Danni's breathing pattern changed and he knew just by that that he had awakened her, so he stilled himself, hoping that she would return to sleep.

"Jacen?" she whispered sleepily.

"Yeah?" he replied quietly. But his voice was too alert and she picked up on it right away.

"What's wrong? Why aren't you asleep?" she asked.

"I can't," Jacen admitted reluctantly.

"Do you want to talk?"

"What about?"

"Why you can't sleep?"

"Well, maybe because you were snoring," Jacen quipped with a small laugh.

"I was _not_," Danni protested with a cute whine.

"Oh, you were," he continued the teasing.

Danni tickled his ribs in retaliation and Jacen writhed with giggles.

"So? What is it that keeps you up at night?" Danni asked. By then, Jacen was busy returning his breathing to normal after the bout of uncontrolled laughing.

Despite her light tone, he caught on to her serious disposition. "Nothing," he said finally.

What right did he have to place his problems on her shoulders? She had enough on her plate already – her research work, her piloting, and now her pregnancy. He didn't want to add to her burden. So it was better to remain silent.

"Usually when someone says 'nothing', it means 'something,'" Danni remarked calmly. "Mind telling me what's on your mind?" When his silence persisted, she sighed. "Jacen, please... Just tell me. You know I can keep anything you say to me in confidence. If this relationship... if you want this to work out, we need to open up to each other. Please."

She was so earnest, so hopeful, in her request that it broke his resolve. Danni wasn't one to ask things of him and he found himself unable to refuse her. Besides, wasn't she right? Wasn't that what all the other good couples he knew, like his parents or Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara, had with each other?

"Danni... I'm... I'm just worried."

"What about?" she asked gently, putting a hand on his shoulder.

She was so open, so accepting...

The dam broke and the words spilled out of him uncontrollably. Jacen related his earlier thoughts, his doubts and fears, and Danni listened patiently, without interrupting, until he finished, suddenly embarrassed at his own outspokenness.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made you listen to all this," Jacen apologized.

"No, it's okay," Danni said, her hand moving up to gently stroke his cheek. "I'm glad you confided in me. It's a huge relief. Thank you."

She fell silent again, no doubt lost in her own thoughts, and Jacen felt increasingly more nervous with every passing second. He had bared his heart to her, shown her his vulnerability and she could destroy him if she chose to. Oh, sure, she loved him as much as he loved her, that much was obvious enough; but he was still worried that, because of the doubts that he had expressed, she might somehow reconsider the question of whether or not Jacen could be a suitable father. He waited for her with a bated breath.

"Jacen, I..." She sighed. "I don't want you to be unhappy with me. You shouldn't stay if it makes you miserable. It was never my intention to keep you away from the galaxy. Yes, I have this selfish desire for you to stay with me forever, but... I know it's not going to happen."

The pained sincerity was like a punch in the gut.

"Danni, no," he said with worry. "I'm not unhappy when I'm with you; I'm just worried, is all. Being with you doesn't make me miserable, it's one of the happiest things in my life; I daresay... maybe even more so than when I achieved oneness with the Force. But, at the same time, just as I had come down from that experience all those years ago, being with you is frustrating not because of you, but because of me. I know it sounds like that old cliche where, 'It's not you, it's me,' but here, it's true, because you weren't the one being selfish; I was. I wanted to explore more of myself and what the galaxy could open up to me, but Jaina was right when she talked to me about selecting my responsibility; I was past exploring myself, and I just didn't know it yet. I put the past before me and my future behind me, and that was one of the worst things that I could ever do to myself and to you.

"But you're right about one thing in this matter; I just can't stay, now that I have responsibilities to the very Order that I helped usher towards adopting the Unifying Force. Even you, who wants me to stay just as much as I do, agree that I can't just shunt that responsibility for this one; it's what I need to do, what I _have_ to do, with the powers that I have, even if I don't want to. Danni, right now, all I _want_ to do is be with you and our child every step of the way, and it pains me to know that I can't do that now; as I said, I'm nervous that, if not now, then over time, you'll come to think that all I can offer you and our baby won't be enough, at least on an emotional level."

Danni was silent for a long moment; she simply stared back at her lover with deep concern and contemplation. Jacen held himself back from breaking her gaze, as if doing that would be the straw that broke the back of their relationship.

"Jacen," she said finally in a soft whisper, "I'll be content with anything you're willing to give. You don't have to ever worry about that; so long as I know in my heart as much as my head that you're giving it your all into this. Because we were apart for years and seeing you once a month... it sounds like a good deal in comparison." He could hear the tears in her eyes as she spoke.

"You said to make it count," Jacen murmured thoughtfully, then pulled her to him and ran his hand down her back comfortingly. "I will. We will. I promise."

"You will be a good father, I'm sure of that," Danni said fervently.

Her confidence in this soothed all of his worries. Jacen kissed the top of her head and by an unspoken agreement, they shuffled around to get comfortable and sleep.

Long after Danni fell asleep, Jacen stayed up. He still didn't understand just how lucky he happened to be tonight. Was this the famous good Solo fortune? Was it the will of the Force?

In any case, his throat tightened from the surge of appreciation and gratitude he experienced at that moment as he realized that this incredible, brilliant woman accepted him in his entirety, with his obvious flaws, doubts, and misgivings. Danni wanted him so much but she also loved him enough to let him go. She couldn't be selfish even if she tried.

She had the heart of a true Jedi, even if she wasn't one or would ever be one.

Jacen could never be more happy that he was the one that she, a woman who wanted no emotional attachments before the last war, gave her love to.

With that last thought, he drifted off to sleep, his spirit finally at ease.


	22. Chapter 22

The next day, the first thing that Jacen and Danni did was take a shower that lasted several minutes, as they fell into another bout of passionate love-making there. Then, when that was done, and they were otherwise clean, they dried up, dressed up, had breakfast, and went out to tour La'okio. During this time, they fell into idle chitchat that led to quite a few laughs between them.

"Wow," Danni said at one point, "even as a kid, I have to ask, how is it that you found any of these jokes genuinely funny?" Her tone was mirthful, and still laughing ironically from the joke that Jacen just told.

"What, you don't think the joke about the TIE fighter screaming for its mothership is genuinely funny?" Jacen countered just as playfully. "To this day, it still makes me giggle without irony."

"Let's just hope that if our child gets your sense of humor," Danni said, "he doesn't think that being a stage comedian is a good idea."

"He?" Jacen asked. "How do you know the baby isn't a she?"

"Well, after you poured your heart out to me last night," Danni explained, "I dreamed of our child. The baby is going to be a boy, Jacen."

"Well, that's good," Jacen commented offhandedly.

Danni raised an eyebrow with a wan smile. "Anything wrong if it had been a girl?"

Jacen chuckled. "It's good either way, Danni, you know that."

"Yeah, I know, I was just messin' with ya," Danni said.

"I figured," Jacen replied. "What do you think we should name him? Or, since you're the one taking care of our son on a regular basis, what do you think he should be named? I'm fine with whatever you choose to name him."

"What about Nom Anor Quee?" Danni asked, not even bothering to restrain her playful laugh.

"Now, you see, _that_'s a bad joke," Jacen said. Danni broke out into some more laughing. "No, but seriously, you thought of any names?"

Danni shrugged. "Haven't given it much thought. I was hoping you might come up with it."

"Me? Why me?"

"Why not?" Danni countered. "I guess I'd just like to let you have a decision about what our son should be named."

A moment of silence fell between them as Jacen thought about it. "How about Miko?"

Danni looked at her lover, all traces of mirth vanished, replaced by stunned contemplation. "You mean as in Miko Reglia?"

Jacen nodded, just as serious as Danni. "He endured the torture brought about by the Praetorite Vong with you, and he sacrificed his life so you and I could escape Helska Four. I think it'd be nice to honor him like that."

Danni slowly looked away from Jacen as she chewed it around in her head.

After a few moments, Jacen asked, "So what do you think?"

"I'll have to think about that, Jacen," Danni said. "Because on the one hand, I do think it's a good idea to honor Miko like that. On the other, I'm not sure if I want that kind of reminder about what Da'Gara and his people did to him and I."

"Fair enough," Jacen said in a genteel tone. "I was just making a suggestion."

"It's okay," Danni said. "I'll just have to think a little more about it, is all."

"All right. So, uh, I was wondering that since, on the sixteenth of next month, we can see each other again."

"That sounds like a good idea," Danni said.

"Only you might have to leave Zonama," Jacen said.

Danni looked at her lover. "What for?"

"Well, not for too long, anyway," Jacen clarified quickly. "It's just that, on the twenty-first of next month, Jaina and Jag are having their wedding, and I was thinking-"

"That I could be your wedding date?" Danni finished for him.

"Would you?"

"I don't think anyone on Zonama will mind if I'm gone for a few days," Danni said.

"Great," Jacen said with a satisfied smile. "Oh, hey, here's another joke for you. What do you call the person who brings a rancor to dinner?"

"Someone who's trained the rancor to behave at a dinner party, like a Dathomiri witch?" Danni asked.

"Oh, c'mon, you're ruining the joke!" Jacen replied playfully.

"How is it possible to ruin any of your jokes?" Danni replied.

"You were supposed to say 'I don't know,'" Jacen said.

Danni sighed in mock resignation. "I don't know, what do you call a person who brings a rancor to dinner?"

"The appetizer!"

At first, Danni's now blank expression lightened into a smile until she started to laugh. "I don't know why I find these funny on any level, ironic or not. I really need to get my sense of humor checked out by Tekli or someone."

"Nah, it seems all right to me, just as the rest of you is," Jacen said.

"If I was an airhead, Jacen, I would have swooned at that," Danni said.

"Can you swoon for me anyway?"

Danni then pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and said, "Oh, Jacen, take me into your arms now."

"No problem," he said before smoothly pulling her in for a kiss.

And in his grasp, she melted as if she were the kind of woman that she was just mocking.

When they pulled out of the embrace, Jacen flashed her another trademark Solo grin. "And that's how my dad managed to get a smarter woman like my mom."

"Jacen, if our son has that level of charm, all the women in the galaxy will be chasing after him, and there's nothing we can do to stop that," Danni said.

Jacen shrugged. "I can defeat a deformed genocidal Yuuzhan Vong by achieving the entirety of the Force on my side, end an entire war, and create chemical concoctions from both within me and around my environment, but I don't think even I can stop women from chasing our child."

Danni tilted her head. "Wouldn't that be another disaster for the galaxy?" she retorted.

"Oh, well," he said. "So, I gotta ask, what is it exactly that you're researching here on Zonama?"

"Quite a variety of things, Jacen," Danni answered. "In fact, it's what makes me doubt if I can ever leave this planet of my own free will."

"Oh, yeah? What are these things you're researching?"

"Well, for one thing, how the engines work. Usually, in typical starships, hyperdrives are made out of a certain titanium-chromium compound. However, after a few months of research, I found that wasn't the case with Zonama. It, instead, has some kind of carbon-lithium compound in its place. To this day, I still don't know how that's possible, or how the planet's null quantum field generators can help stabilize this planet when it goes through hyperspace, but I'm still working on finding out."

"Why don't you just ask Sekot about this kind of information?" Jacen asked.

"At one point, I did," Danni replied.

"And?"

Danni shook her head. "Speaking through Magister Jabitha, she told me that I had to find those answers for myself. Through my own scientific methods."

"That kinda sounds like Sekot to me," Jacen admitted. "Wanting people to discover things for themselves and all. Any other projects you're working on?"

"Well, a little side project that my Yuuzhan Vong assistants are helping me with is trying to find a concrete biological connection between their species and Zonama itself," Danni explained. "While we've discovered several biological similarities, we haven't found the one that would explain how it, as the offspring of the original Yuuzhan'tar, could bring the Force back to them."

"Sekot's been doing that fairly well so far, isn't it?" Jacen asked.

"For some, it has," Danni said. "We've gotten several volunteers from those who have achieved the Force, whom we've conducted DNA sampling from, such as in saliva, hair follicles, and some skin cells. Nothing too painful, just some microscopic pickings that don't even leave a pinch on them. We don't want any of them to regress back to their savage ways, now do we?"

"No, we wouldn't," Jacen agreed. "How long do you think this might take you, at least?"

"If I'm lucky?" Danni asked. "Probably the next decade or so."

"I see," Jacen muttered.

Danni sighed. "Yes, I know. Which means I won't be returning to the galaxy with you anytime soon. But, hey, like we said, make the best of the time, eh?"

Jacen smiled and nodded. "Yeah, we should definitely make the best of the time."


	23. Chapter 23

Two days later, just a few seconds after the _Solo Quest_ had cycled off from her engine shutdown, Jacen's personal commlink beeped and he answered it.

"Jacen," Luke's voice came from the other end, "now that you're back from the Unknown Regions, I need you to come to the Masters' Council Chamber now." His tone was urgent, Jacen could tell, and he didn't need the Force to discern that his uncle would brook no argument.

"I'm coming right now, Uncle Luke," Jacen replied before switching off his commlink. He then looked to his, who was still seated in the copilot's chair. "Garis, you return to your dorm."

"Yes, Jacen," Garis replied obediently as his Master unstrapped himself from the crash webbing holding him to the pilot seat.

After they both left the ship and headed off in different directions for their intended destinations, Jacen took the turbolift up to the level that would bring him to the Council Chamber. There, he traversed the corridor at a brisk walk before coming to the door that opened up automatically for him.

Inside, arrayed from Jacen's left to right counterclockwise around the silver top of the Council's meeting desk, there sat Masters Kenth Hamner, Saba Sebatyne, Kyle Katarn, Uncle Luke, Aunt Mara, Octa Ramis, Corran Horn, and Tresina Lobi. There were three empty seats, two of which, Jacen thought, were no doubt meant for the Masters Solusar, but since they weren't here, he figured that this meeting wasn't meant for them; Kam and Tionne had enough duties, as it were, with running the Jedi Academy on Ossus. So whatever this meeting was called for was most likely meant for all the other Masters, who weren't restrained by such duties.

And the third empty seat...

"Master Solo," Luke said, "please, take your seat, right over there." He pointed at the seat closest to Kenth Hamner.

With only an acknowledging nod, Jacen obeyed his uncle's command.

Now in his place as a Jedi Master, Jacen had only a brief glance around the desk before his uncle started with the debriefing. To now be among those who would help defend the galaxy against those wanting to destroy or rule it to their own ends gave Jacen a profound sense of awe and responsibility on his shoulders.

"Chief of State Omas has kindly asked for the Jedi Order to involve itself in resolving a potential new crisis before it begins," Luke began without preamble. "For those of you not interested, I ask that you please leave this room so those of us who want to get involved may go on with our business."

By "those of you not interested," Luke clearly meant Jacen, as he and all the other Masters were looking at him, as if expecting him to turn this down.

Jacen sat quietly, evenly meeting the gaze of all the other Masters, including his aunt and uncle; and in his turning gaze, he silently let each of them know that he would not turn down responsibility for the galaxy.

When he finally broke away from Tresina Lobi's, Luke said, "Very well. Here is the situation: Corellia is asking to secede from the Galactic Alliance, as Five Worlds Prime Minister Aidel Saxan is lobbying for the independence of the planet and the rest of the Five Worlds. The GA is willing to agree to these terms on the condition that Centerpoint Station be destroyed or otherwise dismantled completely."

"Which is obviously something that Saxan won't agree to," Kyp Durron guessed.

Luke nodded. "The Prime Minister claims that without the GA's support, Centerpoint is their best line of defense from any enemies."

'What about their military?" Corran Horn asked.

"She said that it was their _best_ line of defense, not their only one," Luke clarified. "And because of that, the GA won't allow Corellia to secede if they continue to hone one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy. As it currently stands, both Chief Omas and Prime Minister Saxan are at a political standoff that could very well lead to war between the governments."

"But why bother to disobey anyway?" Jacen asked. "No one can control Centerpoint without my brother, Anakin's, DNA."

"That was what was thought until you were well into the Unknown Regions a few days ago, Master Solo," Luke said. "Somehow, in some way, Corellian technicians have found a way to control Centerpoint without the use of Anakin Solo's DNA or power."

"And _now_ Corellia wants to secede?" Saba Sebatyne asked. "Thiz one does not think this iz a coincidence, even by the Force."

"I don't think anyone else in this room thinks that either, Master Sebatyne," Luke said. "Which is why the GA has all the more reason to be worried if it leaves the Five Worlds alone with Centerpoint; especially with rumors that Saxan is nothing but a puppet ruler to Thrackan Sal-Solo."

"Thrackan?" Jacen inquired. "I thought he was imprisoned for his collusion with the Yuuzhan Vong by Ylesia."

"He was," Luke confirmed, "but in prison, he managed to garner enough influence to get an early release for good behavior two years after the war ended. He became the leader of the Corellian Liberation Party, which represents only a small minority of Corellians within the sphere of the Five Worlds, and he is now allegedly convincing Prime Minister Saxan that secession is the best course of action for the Five Worlds; that was, of course, after Centerpoint had been mysteriously reactivated again.

"So now the question remains as to what we are going to do about it. Chief Omas and I have discussed it, and we have concluded that the fleet of the Five Worlds is willing to fight to protect their sovereignty and for their control over Centerpoint. However, Omas is willing to continue to discuss negotiations with Saxan, which leaves us with one other alternative: destroy Centerpoint covertly."

"But won't that just stir the rebellious spirits of the Corellians?" Jacen asked. "They will argue that they will have more justification if their most powerful line of defense has been destroyed by a Jedi team sponsored by the GA. If anything, this might convince other systems and planets that the Five Worlds are in the right, and the GA is an oppressive regime unwilling to give any true freedom to the rest of the galaxy."

"Another point discussed between Omas and I," Luke said. "He says that should the mission to destroy Centerpoint be successful, and that whatever happens after that - whether the Five Worlds still want their independence, or are more willing to fall in line with this government - Omas assures me that he will convince the rest of the galaxy that the GA is not an oppressive regime."

"How?" Tresina Lobi asked.

"Simple," Luke said. "By pointing out the threat that Centerpoint posed, a power that very few in the galaxy could possibly match."

"So, so long as no one has greater power than the GA, and that if everyone else remains relatively weak and vulnerable compared to the GA," Jacen spoke up, "then everyone else is safe. Is that it?"

"So long as no one who has greater power is willing to abuse it against the GA," Luke clarified pointedly, "then the GA will not take any aggressive actions."

"Master Solo," Mara said, "you seem rather reluctant to follow in this plan. Do you have any ideas as to how to resolve this conflict without violence?"

"Aside from letting Chief Omas and Prime Minister Saxan continue discussing negotiations?" Jacen replied. "Then, no, I have none. And, yes, I understand that my cousin Thrackan is very likely an influence in this conflict to begin with; so if he does have any amount of control over Centerpoint Station, then I agree that it's imperative that Centerpoint be destroyed, if necessary."

After a silent moment, Mara asked, "But?"

Jacen looked at his aunt in confusion. "There's no but in this... except for whether or not there are any objections that I will be the one to accomplish this mission."

"By yourself?" Luke asked. "I don't think any of us have any objections to you going, and given your emotional removal to your cousin Thrackan, I certainly don't have any doubt that you can take on this mission. But are you really going to go there by yourself?"

"I can take my apprentice, Garis Boric, along with me," Jacen said. "I vow by my life to have him return from this mission alive, even if I don't. Besides, it'll be a good first experience for him on a Jedi mission." He smiled weakly in spite of himself.

"But you want to have no one else?" Luke inquired. "None of the other Masters here?"

"I'm not unwilling to take any participants," Jacen said. He looked around. "Who wants to join me?"

Masters Sebatyne, Katarn, Ramis, and Kyp all raised their hands in unison.

"I think only one other Master will be appropriate for this mission," Jacen said. "Master Sebatyne, pardon me, but given the fact that you're a Barabel, I think you'll be too conspicuous in the Corellia system. And, Masters Katarn and Durron, you're both too well-known to the galaxy to be inconspicuous yourselves."

"So are you!" Katarn nearly exclaimed. "In fact, because of your relation to Sal-Solo, you're more likely to be spotted than either Kyp or me."

"And besides, there's nothing a little makeup can't disguise for all of us," Kyp interjected. "Master Sebatyne excluded, of course."

"Regardless, I think Master Ramis will be the most appropriate choice for this mission," Jacen said. "Oh, and on a personal note, Kyp, thanks for the makeup suggestion; I always did wanna look prettier." He flashed a smile, as if he were some kind of pop culture diva.

Only silence and dull looks from the other Masters persisted.

"At least none of you groaned," Jacen muttered after the moment passed.

"I agree to this arrangement," Luke said. "Master Solo, Master Ramis, you two will both ship out tomorrow to Corellia on a refugee ship. You will be disguised as Corellians who wish to seek refuge back in their home system, as you feel that you are oppressed in the GA. You will have come from Commenor. From there, we leave it up to you as to what your backstories are; you will be expected by a GA spy, who will grant you guaranteed passage aboard Centerpoint. The spy's name is Toval Seyah."

Luke then pressed a button beneath his side of the desk. Over the center of the desk was an image of a plump, elderly dark-skinned man with stark white hair.

"This is him," Luke continued. "You will contact him discreetly by saying the phrase, 'From Commenor or Denon, nothing will stop us from returning home.' He'll know that you're the team who'll help destroy Centerpoint, and he'll follow whatever instructions you have for him in destroying the station."

"So you'll leave the planning up to us then?" Jacen asked.

"We can't think of everything, can we?" Luke asked with a sardonic smile.

"In that case, I already have a plan mapped out in my head, Master Skywalker," Jacen replied with an equally sardonic grin.


	24. Chapter 24

"From Commenor or Denon," Octa said into the ship's comm console, "nothing will stop us from returning home." Her tone had complete and utter conviction, as if she were a true Corellian instead of a born-and-bred Chandrilan.

"We're all very glad to hear that, Captain Kershok," the voice of the Centerpoint Station operator on the other end replied evenly. "Proceed to Docking Bay 38C. And welcome back home." The line was then cut off from the other end.

"Not bad," a disguised Jacen commented from the copilot seat. He now bore a prosthetic jawline and set of cheekbones that masked his true features; his hair was dyed completely blonde; and he even had contact lenses that turned his brown eyes to an innocuous grey. "Sounded pretty convincing there, Master Ramis."

"We're on a mission, Master Solo," Octa replied as she piloted the YT-2400 toward Centerpoint. "Sounding convincing is kind of a requirement here, just as your disguise looking convincing is as much of a requirement."

"Fair enough," Jacen responded.

They said nothing more to each other as Octa concluded the short journey to Centerpoint, landing in Docking Bay 38C as instructed. Soon after that, the two Masters, along with their apprentices - Garis and Octa's apprentice Seha Dorvald, who casually held a portable holoplayer in one hand - disembarked down the open boarding ramp, where they were met by the man whose holoimage Jacen and Octa had seen before in the Council meeting.

"I overheard your declaration," Toval Seyah said in a low tone. While no one else was with them, it didn't hurt to keep a low profile in the busy hangar. He then took out two holodiscs, handing each out to Jacen and Octa.

"That one-" Seyah nodded at the disc that Octa held "-gives you the private schematics to the station's control center, as well as how you can get there and back discreetly." He then similarly acknowledged the disc that Jacen held. "That one contains the virus; I have neither the authorization to enter the control center itself or to even upload the virus if I could get there. I leave that all up to you."

"Thank you, Mister Seyah," Jacen said.

Seyah nodded at the four Jedi one last time, then turned and headed off to a private shuttle; it was clear to all five of them that when the Jedi had fulfilled their mission, it was a good idea to be out of here as soon as possible.

Even before Seyah had boarded his ship to leave Centerpoint, the four Jedi were already heading toward a comm booth, where Octa discreetly handed the holodisc she held to Seha.

At the booth, Jacen, Octa, and Garis held back while Seha used the privacy that the booth and the other Jedi afforded her to set both the disc and the portable holoplayer with a self-charging power source down on the stand before her. She inserted the disc there, where she and her fellow Jedi then looked to find out how they would get to Centerpoint's control center.

However, before she managed to get her fellow Jedi's attention, Jacen noticed a mysterious woman whose traditionally attractive looks appeared conspicuously fake to him. And it wasn't in a way that any competent plastic surgeon would have put together... unless the woman had suffered from horrible injuries.

But the real reason that she caught Jacen's attention was that he felt an undercurrent of darkness radiating from her; and though she didn't look directly at the four Jedi - she was leaning against a wall reading a holozine - Jacen felt that she had her full attention on him, Octa, and the apprentices.

"All right, here it is," Seha finally said when she had the disc played.

As Jacen turned away from the woman in the distance, he kept his Force-senses open to keep a tab on the figure. He and his fellow Jedi then gazed at the holoimage to see how they would get to the control center.

"The sewage system?" Jacen asked once they saw how they would get there. "Why not an airshaft or something?"

"They have those monitored," Seha reported without looking away from the holoimage. "Looks like we can't sneak in through the holodrama way." She cocked her head when she looked at Jacen. "Sorry, Master Solo."

"Well, personally, I'm not afraid to get a little dirty," Octa said.

A few minutes later, they had all entered the men's washroom, and no one already in there paid any real mind to two women being there until Octa used the Force to rip a toilet out of an empty stall.

"You won't say a word of this when you leave this washroom," Jacen said with a wave of his hand to the bathroom's occupants, hoping that they were all weak-minded.

Luckily, they all were, and they left in a daze, having completely forgotten about what had stunned them to begin with.

Then, with only a moment's hesitation on their collective part, the four Jedi filed in, one-by-one, as they jumped into the hole that Octa made. The latter had jumped in first, followed by Seha, then Garis, and finally Jacen.

Fifteen minutes later, during which Jacen and Octa had used the Force to guide their way to where they needed to go - thanks to Seha using the portable holoplayer to mark their location - the four Jedi finally reached their destination.

Garis activated his blue-bladed lightsaber and cut a human-sized circle against the locked door before using the Force to blow it in. He led the way inside just as alarms started blaring all throughout the station.

That became no wonder once the Jedi were all in the next room - the control center, where a ten-foot-tall robot stood in the direct center.

And it was the sight of the robot that gave Jacen pause.

"Who are you?" Anakin Solo's voice emitted from the robot that also bore a silvery facsimile of his features. "Why are you intruding in my space?"

"Anakin?" Jacen asked.

"That is my name," the robot replied. "Anakin Sal-Solo. But Anakin Solo was the name of the one whose DNA was harvested from this station to make me, the one that controls its operations and its ability to act as a battle station."

_Of course!_ Jacen thought in horror. Thrackan Sal-Solo must have had his flunkies do just that to give to some scientists to make this robot. And now, here it was, all that remained of his brother, as it was being used to suit Thrackan's own ends.

"But you haven't answered my question yet," the Anakin robot continued. "Who are you?"

"We're here to blow up this station," Octa said confidently. "Now are you going to get out of our way and let us complete that mission, or are we gonna have to cut you down in size?" She unhooked her lightsaber from her belt but didn't activate it.

"If you wish to destroy the station," Anakin Sal-Solo said, "you will have to upload some sort of computer virus into my head; destroying me will simply render this station worthless as a weapon. But I am afraid that the ladies and gentlemen about to enter this room will not allow that to happen."

As if on cue, portals opened up along the walls of the room, and men and women in a mix of humans, Selonians, and Dralls poured in, firing blaster rifles at the four Jedi. Almost immediately, the aforementioned targets had their lightsabers out, active, and whirling to fend off the incoming laser bolts back at the shooters.

But during his lightsaber-swinging, Jacen was suddenly caught off-guard by a sudden flash that brought him out of the Centerpoint control room. From there, he found himself standing amidst a blank, dark background, with only the outline of the galaxy that Jacen lived in before him.

The galaxy grew larger before him in an instant, and he found that it was not only lit up by stars, but also by all-too brief flashes of fire and energy. A closer look, and he found that the flashes were the explosions of various warships encompassing every system in the galaxy.

From Coruscant to the Unknown Regions and Wild Space, the galaxy was at war with itself; a conflict that would make the Yuuzhan Vong War and the Galactic Civil War _combined_ look like a minor skirmish in comparison. And because of that, every living being in the galaxy would die; the Galactic Alliance would splinter away into nothingness, and the Jedi Order will have nothing to salvage from the ashes.

And it would all start with the destruction of Centerpoint Station; Corellia and the rest of the Five Worlds of this system would take this as an act of total oppression on the part of the Galactic Alliance, and Aidel Saxan and Thrackan Sal-Solo would convince other systems to join their cause against the mainstream galactic government.

Once Jacen realized that, he was snapped back into reality, and resumed his lightsaber-swinging against the blasterbolts coming his way as if nothing happened.

"Octa!" Jacen called out over the blaster shots. "We have to abort this mission!"

"What?" Octa asked, taking less than a second away from batting away the laser bolts to look at Jacen.

"This will only lead to the destruction of the galaxy!" Jacen said. "We have to get out of here!"

He then turned and headed back through the hole in the wall that Garis made. Wordlessly, Octa and the apprentices followed suit as they headed back up the tunnel from which they came. Naturally, the thugs shooting at them gave pursuit.

"We can't just let Centerpoint remain active as a weapon like this, Master Solo!" Octa called in between deflecting blasterbolts back at their attackers. "We have to render it inert, at the very least!"

Jacen thought for a moment as he continued to run and bat laser bolts back and away. Yes, the vision didn't say that it would lead to the galaxy's destruction if the station itself were simply rendered useless as a star-destroying gun.

"Then I'll be right back!" Jacen said. "You take the apprentices and get out of here ASAP! I'll take care of that robot myself!"

And with the use of his Aing-Tii teleportation technique, he simply disappeared out of where he was running, and ended up right back in the room with Anakin Sal-Solo.

By now, there were no more thugs left in the control room; they were either dead, severely wounded, or still chasing Octa, Garis, and Seha. And that left Jacen alone with all that remained of his late brother.

"How did you appear like that?" the robot asked in what amounted to shock on its part.

"Long story," was all Jacen said on the matter. "Point is, though, if Centerpoint is to remain for the sake of the galaxy, then I'll at least make sure that it doesn't work. I'm very, truly sorry about this."

And he was; as Jacen unleashed a volley of Electric Judgement in the robot's direction, he knew that he was destroying all that remained of Anakin Solo, his baby brother. The DNA that had been harvested from him aboard the station was blasted away into absolute oblivion as the robot was enveloped by the electricity and blown up, without a single trace of metal left.

It was a decision as simple to commence as it was hard to make on Jacen's part.

He stood there for only a moment in contemplation that he destroyed the last of his brother. Then, without anymore hesitation, he turned and once again headed out through the hole that Garis made.

Jacen soon put on a burst of Force-speed to catch up with the thugs that remained in chasing down Octa and the apprentices. With none of them hearing the blaze of his lightsaber coming from behind them until it was too late, he cut the last dozen or so to the ground before catching back up with his three fellow Jedi.

Once they had all returned to the men's washroom through the stall, they found that they were now surrounded by a legion of Centerpoint guards aiming military-grade blasters at them. But instead of promptly dispatching them with their lightsabers in close-quarters combat, Jacen commenced a Fallanassi illusion that had the guards began shooting each other in fear. They were all down and out in a matter of seconds.

"I made them think that mynocks suddenly manifested in the room," Jacen said. "I know it's against the Fallanassi way to use illusions to enact violence, but-"

"Whatever," Octa said. "Let's just get out of here."

The four Jedi then rushed out of the washroom to end up in the milling throng of people who were now evacuating the station because of the alarms still going off. But Jacen soon stopped in his tracks when he saw the woman who caught his attention staring directly back at him from across the hangar bay.

"Jacen, where are you going?" Octa asked once Jacen began heading away from the YT-2400 that brought the four Jedi here.

Jacen ignored his fellow Master as he continued to head over to the mysterious woman. She continued to stare straight at him once he was in talking distance from her.

"Who are you?" Jacen asked sternly.

"My name is Brisha Syo," the woman answered. "And I'm here to help you stop this pointless conflict from getting out of control."


	25. Chapter 25

Following the quick getaway from Centerpoint, the YT-2400 that ferried the Jedi to the station was now back in hyperspace, returning for Denon.

In the meantime, the stranger who escaped with them, Brisha Syo, was now staying in the YT-2400's guest suite. It was here that Jacen knocked from outside, ten minutes into their trip through hyperspace; he and the other Jedi just got everything settled, so it was now time for him to find out what their guest had to tell them.

"Come in," Brisha said.

Jacen complied, and after the door was closed behind him, he found that Brisha was seated on the edge of her bed, hands folded in her lap and looking back at him in some form of expectation.

"Hello, Jacen," she said in a level tone. "What can I do for you?"

Jacen said nothing as he walked over to a wooden chair in the corner, picked it up, and walked over to Brisha to set the chair down before her.

When he was seated in the chair, Jacen started. "Now that we're safely back in hyperspace, do you mind telling me anymore about yourself?"

"What would you like to know?"

"Namely, how you'll help us settle this conflict," Jacen said. "Which makes it all the more... questionable since you didn't do anything to help Master Ramis, myself, or our apprentices."

"By questionable, you mean suspicious," Brisha stated. It wasn't a question.

"Very well," she continued when Jacen didn't acknowledge her statement. "If you must know, I was acting as a standby for you and your fellow Jedi should you fail to even shut off the robot made of your brother's DNA."

"How do you even know about that?" Jacen asked. "In fact, how did you even know of our mission?"

"I didn't know, per se," Brisha said. "When Corellia announced that it wanted to secede from the Galactic Alliance with a space station capable of destroying stars in distant systems, and which could only be operated by your late brother, I knew that you and at least a few other Jedi would be involved in stopping this station. Obviously, I was correct.

"Now, as to how I knew of that robot, I did some advance investigation of my own before you and your colleagues arrived."

"But if you're interested in helping us stop this conflict," Jacen said, "why didn't you destroy that robot yourself?"

"Well, as you know by now, destroying the robot only makes Centerpoint inert as a battle station," Brisha reminded him. "And I had no access to any computer virus that might, say, destroy the station itself; I simply don't have the resources for that kind of thing."

"But you figured that the Jedi would when we arrived," Jacen figured.

Brisha nodded.

"Fair enough," Jacen said. "Except, again, if you were interested in helping, why didn't you simply introduce yourself to Master Ramis, myself, and the apprentices? It would have been less suspicious than observing us over not-reading a holozine."

Brisha grinned. "Can't fool you, can I?"

Jacen's look remained serious.

"I didn't want to mess up whatever plan you already had," Brisha said. "I thought that the best I could do was just to stay out of the way."

"I guess that makes sense," Jacen said. "But, tell me, if you did some early investigations into the station before we arrived, why didn't you decide to cut the alarms or something? That would have made things a lot easier for myself and my fellow Jedi to... complete our mission." Since Jacen received that vision, he hesitated in thinking that having that virus implanted into Anakin Sal-Solo would have been a good idea for the sake of the galaxy.

"I was about to do that, as a matter of fact," Brisha said. "But you Jedi move quickly; right when I was about to silence the station's alarms, you had reached the control center and the alarms just went off. It was too late."

From what she just said, Jacen felt that was telling the truth. But... there was something off about it. He didn't know what.

"But, you know," Brisha continued, "I couldn't help but notice the way you hesitated when you said that my help would have made your mission a lot easier. It seemed to me as if you had second thoughts, as it were, in having that virus implanted into that robot, never mind destroying it."

Jacen hesitated. How much could he tell this total stranger who he knew nothing about? And who also gave him an air of mistrust?

"You're a Force-sensitive," Jacen said, ignoring her question.

"I doubt it would take a Force-sensitive to tell when even a Jedi is uncertain about the decisions he makes," Brisha said.

"Maybe," Jacen agreed reluctantly. "But you have the Force, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," Brisha answered simply.

"And you never went to the Jedi Order about this?" Jacen asked. "To become an apprentice?"

Brisha shrugged. "I was never interested in joining the Jedi. Or any other Force sect for that matter."

"So then who are you?" Jacen asked. "What do you do? Why are you so interested in stopping a conflict like this?"

"Can't being a good samaritan with special abilities count for something?" Brisha countered.

"It could," Jacen replied stoically. "But what did you do before you decided to try to stop this new crisis?"

"Why are you so interested in knowing that, Master Solo?" Brisha asked.

"Like I said, I wanna get to know a little bit more about you," Jacen said.

Brisha said nothing for a moment before she leaned slightly over. "What kind of person do you think I am?"

"That's the thing," Jacen said. "I really don't know. Which is why I have a hard time trusting you."

"I suppose that's fair," Brisha said, sitting back up. "But before I tell anymore about myself, could you please answer why you seemed so hesitant about... completing your mission?" Her tone was reflective but not mocking of what Jacen said earlier.

Jacen sighed. He had a feeling that if he was going to get any chance of willing cooperation from this woman, he might as well open up as much as he could.

"When my fellow Jedi and I were fighting the thugs protecting Anakin Sal-Solo," he began, "I received a vision. I saw that following the would-be destruction of Centerpoint, the galaxy would fall into utter chaos; anarchy that it could never recover from."

"All of galactic civilization would die?" Brisha asked, obviously concerned.

"Even those living in the Unknown Regions and Wild Space," Jacen confirmed.

"But rendering Centerpoint inert would give the galaxy a better chance?" Brisha asked.

Jacen shrugged. "I suppose. I don't know. All I knew was, we couldn't just leave that station without making sure that the Corellians wouldn't have a weapon that could bring the Galactic Alliance to its knees."

"Understandable," Brisha said. "Well, that confirms it, then."

"Confirms what?" Jacen asked.

"The prophecy in this set of tassels," Brisha answered.

She then reached into the folds of her dress and produced some sort of odd assortment of interwoven tassels.

And immediately, Jacen felt a Force-connection to them.

"You feel it, don't you?" Brisha asked. "Just as I felt it. I learned to decipher one of them through the Force. It told me, in a vague way, to bring it to the one that it calls for. And I sensed that the one it calls for is you, Jacen. Am I right?"

"I feel something," Jacen said, not taking his eyes off the set of tassels. "Maybe it is what you say it is."

"Then it's your destiny to decipher them for yourself and find out what you should do," Brisha said as she offered the set of tassels to him.

Hesitantly, Jacen took the tassels from Brisha and brought them closer to his face. He closed his eyes, plunged deep into the Force, and began using it to decipher what the tassels wanted from him.

And in an instant, as he began to Force-read them, he instinctively learned through the Force that each tassel came from a different culture in the galaxy. Though he didn't know where some of the tassels came from, he could still discern their meanings.

_He will remake/rename himself_—from the endangered Firrerreo culture.

_He will ruin those who deny justice_—from the Bith Aalagar race.

_He will choose the fate of the weak_—from the prisoners of Kessel.

_He will immortalize his love_—from the dark-sided sentient mynock species native to the Home.

_He will choose how he will be loved_—from the Alderaanian flower language.

_He will win and break his chains_—from the homeless subculture of Coruscant.

_He will shed his skin and choose a new skin._

_He will strengthen himself through sacrifice._

_He will crawl through his cloak._

_He will know brotherhood._

_He will make a pet_ ("make" as in fabricate).

_He will strengthen himself through pain_—from the Twi'lek Tahu'ip culture.

_He will be drawn from peace into conflict_ or possibly _His life will be balanced between peace and conflict_—from the Sith statuary language of Ziost.

And Jacen felt all of that applying to his destiny.

When he was done reading it, he looked back Brisha, who asked, "So... what did they tell you?"

Before he could answer her question, something occurred to him. The expectant, giddy look that she could barely contain; her tensed body language. It was all as if she were anticipating something. Jacen could even feel something oozing from her Force-presence, which she thought that she was containing fairly well.

And now that he came to think of it, as he realized that Brisha was, indeed, hiding something from him, as he suspected earlier, he looked back at the tassels and sensed the presence of Brisha coming from them.

When he looked back up to her, he flat-out asked, "Who are you? Really?"

Brisha's expectant gaze turned to one of disappointment before it just as quickly resolved to careful neutrality.

"If you must know," she said, "my name is not truly Brisha Syo. I was once known as Shria Brie, but I am now known as Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith."

Jacen's expression fell into one of shock; he tensed as Lumiya raised her arms to either side of her head, but in surrender, not to attack.

"I don't wish to harm you," she said. "I only wish to help you. That remains the truth."

Jacen remained stunned, not knowing what to do now. On the one hand, she was a Sith; one who believed in the power of the dark side of the Force, and who embraced her inner darkness to lengths that were as self-destructive as they were destructive to all those around her. As a Jedi, Jacen had an obligation to keep her as a prisoner, if not outright kill her.

But because she offered no immediate threat, he was in no position to simply strike her down in cold blood. It wasn't the Jedi way, whether it was in the view of the Living Force or the Unifying Force. All he could do was keep her prisoner here, tell the others aboard the ship, and report back to Uncle Luke and the other Masters of this development.

However, he couldn't help but want to help prove how flimsy her deceit really was.

"No, that doesn't remain the truth," Jacen said in response. "None of what you said is true, except for your identity. In spite of your defenses, I can feel the cracks in your aura, and I can sense your lies. And I can sense your own aura imprinted in these tassels; you've commenced some sort of Force-trick here that would make me believe that this all ties into my destiny. You did something that makes me at least _believe_ that I have a connection with these set of tassels, didn't you?"

Lumiya's face remained expressionless. "I've done no such thing," she lied.

Jacen snorted. "Come on, let it all out. What else you got for me, sister?"

"How about the fact that I knew Vergere?" Lumiya countered.

Jacen couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, I can't wait to hear this. Go on, try me."

"After she provided your aunt the cure that would repress the coomb spore virus," Lumiya began, "she came to me. And we talked about the path that your destiny would take. She would mold you to become the man you would be to stop the Yuuzhan Vong and offer them their salvation through Zonama Sekot. That was why she returned to them; your training didn't stop after she died, Jacen. It was only getting started, and defeating the Vong was the first step. Now the time has come to fulfill the rest of your destiny."

"You mean by propagating a pointless conflict into all-out galactic war to get me to rule over the galaxy or something like that?" Jacen asked. He chuckled hostilely. "I don't think so, Lady of the Sith. No, what I think this is is you wanting me to turn dark, as it were, so that you could get revenge on your ex-boyfriend, my uncle, for making you lose a good chunk of your body years ago. Well, I'm not down with that. And personally, even if you did know Vergere, I doubt that she would associate with a Sith, one who believed so vehemently in the dark side when the Force is so much more complicated than that."

"She associated with you, a Jedi, did she not?" Lumiya pointed out.

"Only to let me realize how confined my views were," Jacen countered. "Why didn't she do the same for you? Because she thought it was necessary? Oh, don't you even start to give me that. Vergere would have never approved of starting a war like this."

"What about letting the Yuuzhan Vong thrive?" Lumiya asked.

"That was to save them," Jacen argued.

"At the cost of how many native galactic lives?" Lumiya asked. "How many species and worlds have fallen because Vergere thought it was the right thing to do for the Vong?"

Jacen took a moment to himself to respond. "It wasn't as if the Yuuzhan Vong didn't suffer losses of their own," he replied meekly.

Lumiya scoffed at him. "Oh, boo-hoo for them," she retorted. "Tell me, why is this crisis any different in the grand scheme of things? You said it yourself, you saw it in the vision; if you destroyed Centerpoint, the whole galaxy would have fallen into total war and anarchy. If you want to prevent that, you will have to listen to what the tassels have told you; you feel that they're right, you _know_ in your heart of hearts and in the Force that they're right. You will have to make the same hard decisions in the coming crisis that you made with Vergere when it came to the Vong."

Jacen looked at his feet for a moment before looking back up at Lumiya resolutely. "No."

"What? What did you say?" she asked angrily and impatiently.

"You're wrong. No, more than that, you're _lying_. What Vergere and I did, we made decisions that were tough, but they were almost always in ways that had benefited both sides in the war. And whatever decisions tipped the scales in either side's favor was balanced out. The galaxy finally had peace after four long years. We made the decisions out of the concept that I had once taught the World Brain of Coruscant: _compromise_.

"Vergere and I made compromising decisions; where she didn't tell anyone in the New Republic about Elan's plan to eliminate much of the Jedi, she gave my aunt a repression to her deathly illness. Where Vergere had aided the Yuuzhan Vong in hunting my friends and I down over Myrkr, she helped us destroy the voxyn and their queen. Where she had me captured and tortured by the Yuuzhan Vong, I had been taught a greater truth about the Force. Where she had stopped Alpha Red from going into production before it was brought back on track, she prevented the New Republic from turning as monstrous as the invaders. Where she gave the Yuuzhan Vong tactical information about the galaxy, she sacrificed her life to stop a horde of them from killing me, my sister, and our friends. And where she had aided in the invasion overall, she helped the galaxy find peace for all sides, and brought a greater understanding of the Force to the whole of the Jedi.

"What you ask, Lumiya, is total adherence to the outdated idea of the dark side, an anachronism that's better off in the past along with the light side of the Force and the Living Force overall. I'm unwilling to do that, for it upsets the balance of the Force; I can tell, I can _feel_ it, in my bones as well as the Force, more so than whatever feelings that these kriffing tassels give me." He held up the tassels to her face and promptly threw them off to the side. "And you know how I truly _know_ that you're lying?"

"Tell me," Lumiya whispered in a growl, not even bothering to keep up her charade.

"Because, now, I recognize your presence in that vision," Jacen said as he mimicked her whisper. "You conjured that up and fed it into my mind for me to fall for. And you had me, I'll give you that. But now I can see right through it." His tone then rose to regular volume. "Which means two things from this point: you can either calmly surrender so I can take you to this ship's cell, or we can fight to the death."

Lumiya was silent for a moment, neither saying nor doing anything.

And Jacen felt what her next action would be.

In a lightning-fast move, she pulled out a hidden handle from within the folds of her dress and activated the lash of her lightwhip. She struck it for Jacen, who had already cartwheeled off to his left as he simultaneously unhooked and activated his green-bladed lightsaber from his belt.

Propelling herself off the bed, she soared for Jacen as she whipped her weapon at him again. He caught the lightwhip on his blade, but suddenly found it pulled out of his hands by Lumiya's cybernetically-increased strength. His now-deactivated saber went flying off to the side.

But, as always, Jacen was never weaponless; as long as he had the Force, he was never defenseless. For it was that very aspect of himself that he used to shove the midair Lumiya back across the guest suite and right against the wall behind her. As she hit it, Jacen ducked beneath the next, accidental strike of her lightwhip and then used the Force to recall his lightsaber back to his hands as Lumiya landed prone on the floor.

However, as quickly as she landed there, she had leaped back up and rushed for Jacen, whipping at him all the way. But this time, he was prepared, and after dodging her first few lashes, he put the Force behind his strength as he once again caught Lumiya's lightwhip on his lightsaber and pulled her in toward him, having her sail across the room midair again. Once she was close enough to him, he leaped up and planted both feet into her face, sending her falling back to the floor on her back. Meanwhile, he executed a graceful back-flip to return to his feet.

Lumiya looked up and used her free hand to unleash a volley of electricity for Jacen, which he instinctively raised his lightsaber to have the energy channeled through his blade, allowing the electricity to fizzle away into nothingness. Nevertheless, Lumiya used that distraction to leap back to her feet before whipping her weapon at him again, and she used the Force to make sure that her lightwhip wouldn't wrap around his blade again. This time, the weapons were clashing, almost as if they were both lightsabers.

After several clashes between the two of them, it was then that the door to the guest suite was blown in via Force-use from the outside. Both Jacen and Lumiya halted their duel to see who had arrived, and they found Octa, Garis, and Seha filing in respectively, their lightsabers glowing in their hands.

"Surrender, _Sith_," Octa spat.

Lumiya's subsequent growl turned into a full-out animal-like shriek before she began wildly lashing her lightwhip at a superhuman rate around the room. Her Jedi opponents could do nothing more than dodge all around and deflect her attacks with their lightsabers when necessary, but so far, not even Jacen could find an opening through her defenses. He couldn't even concentrate to use a Fallanassi illusion to get her to calm down or anything else like that.

Finally, however, the battle reached its turning point when one of Lumiya's insane lashes hit Jacen square in the right shoulder.

He fell to the deck on his back while Garis, having circled behind Lumiya in the midst of her attack, watched in shock and horror as his Master collapsed to the floor. It was then that Lumiya had stopped her frenzied attack upon seeing Jacen on the floor, and she whirled her whip around to snap at back upon the wounded Master.

Emitting a primal yell, Garis charged in behind the Sith woman. Her attention was diverted from her intended target when she heard that scream coming in from behind. She quickly pivoted around too late, and the next thing she knew, her lightwhip-wielding arm was lopped off by Garis. She screamed in agony as she stepped away from her attacker.

But Garis didn't let up. He then chopped off Lumiya's other arm with a synchronized cry from both; Garis in rage, Lumiya in pain. Lumiya took another two steps back, only for her right leg to be chopped off by Garis's blade. She collapsed to the floor just as she was going into shock; she almost didn't feel as Garis lopped off her final leg in anger.

"This is for Jacen," he growled as he raised his lightsaber to decapitate her.

But his attack was stopped by Jacen's hand grabbing Garis's weapon-wielding wrist. The apprentice looked over in shock at his stern-looking Master, whose cauterized wound was still healing on the spot.

"Garis, no," Jacen said. "If you kill her in anger, you will be no better than her."

Garis's indignant stare at Jacen gradually resolved to one of realization of his own faults. He then looked down from his Master's gaze. "Yes, Master. I understand. I won't do it again."

"Let's hope not," Jacen said as he spared a glance back at Seha and Octa, who only stood back in concern from the scene. He looked back at his apprentice and said, "We'll talk about this later, in private."

But before any of the Jedi could do or say anything else, Lumiya let out a short roar of both anger and pain. They diverted their attention to her dismembered form.

"_Kill me_," she demanded.

Jacen shook his head. "None of us will do that." He spared a glance at Garis, wordlessly reminding him of what he just did. When he returned his full attention to Lumiya, he said, "We will bring you back to the Galactic Alliance where you will stand trial for your crimes. And we will tend to your injuries. Garis, Seha, please take her to the medbay and-"

Before Jacen could finish that sentence, Lumiya's eyes glowed pure white as she let out another bout of angry yelling. The Jedi watched, stunned in horror, as the Sith woman's whole body soon started to glow pure white, her body overflowing with energy.

Jacen knew what she was doing; she was deliberately overpowering herself so that she would unleash an explosion that would destroy the entire ship. It would be her final act of evil against the Jedi, Jacen thought.

Concentrating, he erected an extremely thick Force-shield to trap in the resulting power, focusing it on the half of the room that Lumiya lay on. Sensing his effort, the three other Jedi added their own energy with his.

When Lumiya finally exploded and died from her own energy, the blast that would have annihilated the YT-2400 was, indeed, relegated inside the reinforced bubble that the Jedi were upholding.

But the immensity and the sheer power of the explosion took the wind out of the four Jedi, even as their shield withstood the blast. And as the shield gradually weakened, Jacen knew that the shield wouldn't hold, and that, at the very most, take out three-fourths of the ship, and _maybe_ the Jedi bodies could be excavated from space.

So Jacen knew what he had to do; quickly withdrawing his power from the Force-bubble, he began to absorb the remnants of Lumiya's power. He drew in what remained of the Sith woman into his being, feeling her anger, pain, and evil, experiencing the lifetime of hatred that she had not only endured, but thrived on.

And after a while... he simply let all that power dissipate completely into the Force with the rest of Lumiya.

Her evil had been vanquished completely. And Jacen had taken what remained of her and let it all die, as it should have a long time ago.


	26. Chapter 26

Following the battle against Lumiya, Octa and Seha retired to their individual quarters aboard the YT-2400 for the rest of the trip back to Denon. Jacen and Garis, meanwhile, went to the latter's room to speak to each other.

The both of them standing near the exit of the quarters, facing each other, Jacen calmly demanded from his apprentice, "Explain to me that outburst of yours back there. And before you go on, I want you to address me as Master or Master Solo for this conversation until I say otherwise."

Garis dropped his gaze from Jacen's for a moment before looking back up to his Master. "I was angry, Master Solo," Garis replied in a reluctant tone. "Angry at Lumiya. She had hurt you, and I thought that maybe she could have killed you. So I attacked her for what she did to you, by making her feel pain for what she did."

Jacen shook his head reproachfully. "You clearly understand that whether by the ideology of the Living Force or the Unifying Force, that is not the Jedi way, Garis." It wasn't a question.

Garis nodded, looking more and more regretful by the moment. "But I couldn't control myself from making that witch pay for what she did to you! No one should ever hurt the great Jedi Master Jacen Solo! You're my hero! My inspiration! So if she wanted to inflict pain onto her, I'd make her know pain." His tone in that last sentence was one of restrained fury and darkness.

"Garis, this is unacceptable. You can't do anything like this, no matter what your feelings on the matter are. You'd be letting your emotions dictate your actions, and you would make the Force a mere weapon rather than the all-encompassing energy that it really is."

Garis had to look away from his Master again, his shame now completely evident, as if he were about to cry for failing Jacen.

The Jedi Master sighed. "Come. Sit down." He waved over to a chair in the corner of the room.

Garis complied, and he took his seat there while Jacen took the one that was adjacent to it.

"Garis, let me tell you a story about my time under Vergere's tutelage. When I was on Yuuzhan Vongformed Coruscant with her, she had deliberately led me into a trap, where I found myself surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong at her back. Naturally, I felt betrayed by my teacher, the only other person in the ruins of what I could call home who I could even remotely trust. So I reacted in the way that had changed my life forever: I used my inner darkness - all the anger, all the sadness, the grief, from the torture and torment that I had to go through - and lashed out with the Force against Vergere and the Yuuzhan Vong with her. I did it in vengeance, I did it to hurt them, to _kill_ them, to make them suffer to their dying breaths.

"After that, I found her laying there, battered and beaten from my attack against her; and she said that this was the true nature of the Force. It wasn't bound by any code of ethics that said that this was right and that was wrong, light or dark. And that was what changed my outlook on the Force; it made me understand that if used incorrectly, the Force could be destructive, just as it could be productive, no matter what the intentions.

"So now, you might be wondering, 'How is this different from how I, Jedi Apprentice Garis Boric, reacted to my Master, Jacen Solo, from being wounded by Lumiya?' The answer is this: There is no real difference, at least not on the surface. Thus, we lead into this question: Why am I scolding you for this, when you reacted purely on your emotions just as I had, which was what allowed me to become the man I am today?

"Because I sense in you, Garis, that how I learned to balance out my inner light and darkness is not how you could have learned it. Every individual must learn their own way, and my way cannot be yours. I can only teach you what I can to not only the best that I can teach you, but also to the best of how you yourself can learn. But do you know how I sense that how I learned the Unifying Force could not work for you?"

"Because of the Force?" Garis asked.

Jacen nodded. "But do you know what the Force was able to tell me about you?"

Garis shook his head wordlessly.

"Through the connection that I've been able to establish with you through the Force, via our Master-apprentice rapport," Jacen began, "I could tell that, as much as you reacted on your powerful emotions, you had also been completely willing to end Lumiya's life after making her endure the pain that you've made her endure. You would not have felt regret; you would not have felt remorse for your actions, for taking the life of another being in cold blood, because you felt that she did not have the right to live anymore for hurting me.

"But even if I didn't have the Force, Garis, I would still be suspicious. You know why?"

"Why?" the apprentice asked, his expression now one of shock and disappointment in himself.

"Because you were _deliberate_ in hurting Lumiya," Jacen emphasized. "You did not lash out at her like a maniac. You did it with precision, with thought somehow put into your rage. You cut her down methodically and at controlled points. It looked more like the workings of a meticulous serial killer than that of a rage-filled Jedi apprentice who wasn't thinking through with his anger. That was what separated us: what I did to Vergere and those Yuuzhan Vong, I did it in the heat of the moment. But what you did in the heat of the moment, you took as an opportunity to carefully make Lumiya suffer in pain. And that greatly disturbs me, Garis."

When Jacen was done, Garis was silent for several long seconds, looking back at his Master as if he had been betrayed. "But... I... saved you," the apprentice growled, his expression going from hurt to rage-filled.

"Yes, you did," Jacen calmly acknowledged. "And I thank you for that. But I must still bring this to the attention of Master Luke. I'm sorry, Garis."

"Well, can't you just retrain me or something?" Garis asked desperately. "Start from scratch? Teach me how best you think I can learn?"

"I intend to do that," Jacen replied. "That is, if my uncle is willing to accept that." His expression brightened, though he didn't smile. "If it's any consolation, I believe that he'll give you a second chance."

"Thank you," Garis replied, his anxious expression evening out to one of hopeful calm.

Jacen nodded. "'Til then, get some rest. We should return to Denon a few hours from now." He stood up and headed to leave his apprentice's quarters.

After he left, and the door was shut behind him, Jacen let out a sigh of both relief and anxiety. On the one hand, he was glad that he could leave that room without really upsetting Garis in that encounter.

On the other, he could sense that Garis seemed horribly disturbed; his apprentice seemed mentally imbalanced, Jacen noticed. That did not bode well for Garis's future as a Jedi.

Jacen felt bad for lying to Garis like that; if Uncle Luke saw what Jacen saw, then Garis could not reach Knight status, never mind being a Master. Guilt ran through Jacen's consciousness that the man who helped him and Jaina reconnect, who helped her regain her lost memories and not regain the post-traumatic stress disorder that had damaged her mind, would not become more than what he was now.

.

"Ah, Master Solo, Master Ramis," Luke said as soon as his nephew and Octa walked into his office a few hours later. "I'm so glad that you've both returned from your trip." His tone did not convey sincerity. "Do either of you mind telling me why Centerpoint Station still exists?"

Jacen and Octa shared a glance, and the latter waved a hand, indicating that Jacen should be the one to explain. Jacen sighed in mild exasperation before he turned back to his uncle. He then recounted how he had been led astray by the false vision given to him by Lumiya, which had given him the impression that the galaxy would fall into desolation if Centerpoint was destroyed.

"I see," Luke said once his nephew had concluded his report. "Well, at least you did what you thought was right, Jacen."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Luke," Jacen said in shame.

Luke sighed. "Well, at least now that Centerpoint has at least been rendered useless as a weapon to the Corellians, Prime Minister Saxan has declared that she's more willing to resolve this issue with Chief Omas. Neither of you have kept up with the news since your escape and return here, have you?"

Jacen and Octa shook their heads in unison.

"Well, reports on the HoloNet have declared that Saxan is willing to allow the Five Worlds to fall back in line with the GA as an entity," Luke elaborated. "With the added agreement that Centerpoint will be completely dismantled and all of its parts subsequently destroyed; the GA will be overlooking this."

"So no one in the Five Worlds is opposing this action?" Jacen asked.

"There are definitely people in the Corellian system who resent Saxan for her decision," Luke confirmed. "But so far, no one in the military has resisted her actions. And while it's possible, there are no signs of a coup against her in sight."

"And what about Thrackan Sal-Solo?" Octa asked.

"What about him?" Luke asked.

"While there's no solid evidence," Octa elaborated, "surely, he must have been behind this. Isn't he taking any actions against Saxan's sanction?"

"He probably would," Luke said, "if he hadn't been reported dead in an alley a couple of hours ago."

"What?" Jacen asked.

Luke nodded. "Blaster bolt to the side of his head, apparently. Police evidence says that it was self-inflicted. Perhaps he didn't want to live in a Corellian system where Saxan's rule would go unopposed, for the most part."

"I doubt that," Jacen said. "I don't think Thrackan would have been so depressed about this. He would have mounted a resistance. No, I think Saxan had him killed."

"Perhaps," Luke said. "But as it is, we have no solid evidence for that, just as we had no solid evidence that Thrackan Sal-Solo had anything to do with Centerpoint being active as a star-destroying weapon again. Therefore, neither the Jedi Order nor the Galactic Alliance have any basis to investigate this further when CorSec has already ruled it as a suicide; and if we do investigate further, we might instigate the Corellians back into crisis against the GA."

"But even if Thrackan was slime," Jacen said, "shouldn't Saxan be ousted as a murderer?"

"In due time, Jacen," Luke said. "In due time. But first, let's make sure we don't start anything that might stop the Five Worlds of Corellia from becoming completely cooperative with the GA, or which might halt the dismantling of Centerpoint."

Jacen sighed. "I suppose you're right."

"At least your mission was somewhat of a success," Luke said. "And that you acted out of conscious, which is what every true Jedi must do. You're both dismissed."

Octa moved to leave, but after she was gone, Jacen remained.

"Uncle Luke," Jacen said, "there's something I need to tell you about Garis..."


	27. Chapter 27

**Author's Note: This was a collab chapter between Jedi Carpet and I. I made quite a number of changes from the draft he gave me.**

"I see," Luke said. Jacen had concluded his report on Garis and how the apprentice had handled Lumiya, and Luke was looking as neutral as ever. "So you don't think you can train Garis any further?"

"I don't think I can," Jacen admitted. "I think he may be too far gone to be helped as a Jedi. As a psyche patient, maybe, but a Jedi?" He shook his head. "He'd be too dangerous."

"You don't believe in giving him a second chance?" Luke asked. "Of helping him back yourself? You're one of the most open-minded Jedi, and yet, you don't think Garis can be helped back to sanity? You helped Jaina back to sanity, after all."

"Uncle Luke, I get where you're coming from," Jacen said. "You redeemed Darth Vader, so you believe that anyone could have a chance at redemption. The problem with Garis isn't that he's going on a dark path because of any real beliefs; I believe that if I take him on any other missions, he won't be able to control himself."

Luke sighed. "So you're not willing to give him another chance at all?"

Jacen tilted his head in thought. "I suppose I could. But only on missions that have a very low probability of there being any violence. I think I can get some one-on-one time with him, try to help him mentally."

"Did he not handle himself well on Centerpoint?" Luke inquired. "It was only when Lumiya hurt you that he reacted the way he did."

"I suppose," Jacen agreed. He mulled it over in his mind for a moment before saying, "All right, Uncle Luke, I'll give Garis another chance. But if he has another episode like the one with Lumiya, I'm not sure I can help him any further... aside from maybe bringing him to a mental ward, that is."

"Fair enough," Luke said.

His commlink then beeped, and he answered it. "Yes?"

"Master Skywalker," Nelani Dinn's voice came, "the Jensaarai visitors are here."

"Thank you, Apprentice Dinn," Luke said. "I will be waiting for them. You send them to the Temple." He cut off the connection just as Jacen was standing up. "Where are you going?" he asked his nephew.

Jacen looked at his uncle in askance. "Aren't we done here?"

"You will want to wait for the visitors, Jacen," Luke said.

Wordlessly, Jacen resumed his seat and waited with his uncle for the Jensaarai visitors.

When they arrived, and Jacen turned to face them, the door opened automatically to reveal the one person he never expected to be in his uncle's office. A head of blonde hair turned to face him, and a smile broke across her face. The familiar green eyes looked at him with an intense power, as if they could turn back the hands of time to make the last time he had seen them mere seconds ago.

"Eriana," Jacen said. "What are…"

"Daddy!" a little voice exclaimed. Beside Eriana, a brown-haired girl about three years old with bright green eyes ran up to him, rounded the chair he sat on, and hopped onto his lap to hug him.

Jacen looked up at Eriana with guilt written all over his face, which seemed to only draw a more seductive smile from her. "Surprise."

.

**Four years ago...**

"I just don't see how the angle of my elbow can make that big a difference in deflecting blasterfire," Jacen argued as he followed his teacher through the corridors of the guest wing of the Jensaarai complex on Sorbaan.

"Sometimes, a more comfortable stance can provide a more relaxed reaction."

Eriana, the tall, incredibly beautiful blonde woman who had just run him through six hours of lightsaber training turned to face him, her brilliant green eyes flashing with something between amusement and excitement that betrayed her tone of voice. "And sometimes, Apprentice Solo, you need to shut up in order to learn why your instructor is right, and why you're just an idiot."

Eriana smiled and winked at him, playfully taking his hands in hers and pulling him the last few steps toward his room while biting her bottom lip coyly.

"I guess this is something I'll have to meditate on," Jacen said, letting himself be led up to his door. She backed right up to the door and he slipped one arm around her waist to pull himself close to her while fumbling around for the thumb print scanner to open the door. He breathed in the sweet, flowery smell of her perfume and relished the feeling of her body against his. Feeling his arousal growing, she ran a hand down to the small of his back and pulled his hips against hers.

"Meditation would be a very good start, Apprentice," Eriana continued in her stern tone of voice that was betrayed by her hooking her leg around him and pressing herself against him harder. Jacen nuzzled her neck, kissing her along her carotid artery as the door finally clicked and swung open. "I think I'll have to guide you in this meditation so you don't screw it up."

"If you insist," Jacen kept up the act, echoing her irritated tone of voice. She hopped up, wrapped her legs around him and began kissing him. As her tongue tickled his, he barely remembered to walk into the room, letting the door close behind them.

After five rounds of vigorous activity, they both settled into the bed so he was cuddling her from behind, his fingers gently playing with a nipple as they let their essences in the Force mingle together. He finally whispered into her ear, "Best meditation, ever."

She rolled over and looked at him with those blazing green eyes, put a leg over him and sat on top of him. He looked up at her, hardly minding that her long blonde hair was tickling his face for the view of the beautiful, athletic girl straddling him. She smiled that brilliant smile and leaned down to kiss him.

"Then let's do it again."

.

**The present…**

Looking at the little girl on his lap, Jacen saw her mother's beautiful green eyes, but the rest of her features were clearly much closer to his own than Eriana's. She was a Solo all right, he thought, if not by name.

"Her name's Sam," Eriana said, still smiling at the sight of her daughter glowing with excitement at meeting her daddy for the first time. "She'll be coming with us on a mission, so you'll have lots of time to play."

"Mission?" Jacen asked, still a bit bewildered, and fairly put off by the glare he was receiving from his uncle.

"To Presilla," Luke elaborated. "A new vein of cortosis ore was discovered by a mining operation. We informed the Jensaarai when we learned about it, and they would very much like to get their hands on it for creating their armor before it hits the open market."

"Yes, you said that your last supplies were running out," Jacen said, recalling that detail from his visit four years before to discover the secrets of the Jensaarai ways of the Force. "It's why you wouldn't let me make my own armor."

"Well, that, and you were a moron," Eriana said with a wink, earning a startled look from Luke that she didn't see. "You didn't exactly leave on good terms with the elders."

Before Jacen could say anything, Luke continued. "We've decided to enter the arrangement with the Jensaarai to help back them as a purchaser using our clout, and to reinforce to the mining company that cortosis should not fall into the wrong hands."

"And you've picked me for the mission?"

"No," Eriana said playfully, putting a hand on his leg and giving it a little squeeze. "We did. Your negotiation skills are legendary. Especially after you talked your way…"

"I'll do it!" Jacen exclaimed, cutting her off. That was one story his uncle did not need to hear. "When do we leave?"

"Now," Eriana said. They both stood up at the same time, Eriana stepping a bit closer to Jacen than was warranted and looked into his eyes with that energy that had ensnared him so many years ago. She turned toward the door and opened it, waiting for him to follow.

As he began to turn, Luke cleared his throat again, earning Jacen's attention. When he looked at his uncle, Luke's stern gaze was solidly focused on Sam.

"We'll talk about this when you get back."

Jacen swallowed hard. "Yes, Uncle Luke."

.

Back aboard the _Solo Quest_ with Garis - who, Jacen reminded himself, would require quite a few meditation sessions during this voyage - Eriana, and Sam, Jacen launched the ship into hyperspace and closed his eyes. He had been avoiding talking to Eriana and Garis about Sam, but he suspected his path of avoidance had finally run its course. He locked the controls down and pulled himself out of the pilot's seat, ready to face the fire. As he opened the door, he found himself tackled backward against the main control panel, a beautiful blonde woman kissing and groping him. She pulled back and looked at him, her eyes still as beautiful as he remembered.

"Oh, I missed you so much, Jacen," Eriana said. She kissed him again and settled on top of him, stroking his hairline and tickling his ear with her fingers while staring into his eyes. "I can't wait to have you in me again. Let's frak all the way to Presilla."

"Eriana, we need to talk," Jacen said, gently pushing her back and using the Force to get back to his feet. Standing up, Eriana wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him against her, but looked into his eyes and bit her lip in the way that had stolen his breath all those years ago – and still did.

"What do we need to talk about?"

"I'm seeing someone," Jacen said uncomfortably.

"So?"

"So, please stop, kissing my neck," Jacen gently pushed her out of the hug and held her at an arm's length. "I love her."

"Again," Eriana said as if he was an idiot. "So? You were still crazy about that Dathomirian princess when we…"

"It's different," Jacen insisted. "Danni is pregnant."

"You are really not firing on all thrusters today, aren't you?" Eriana gestured to the door behind her. "That's your baby back there. If you're holding out for girls you've knocked up, I'm afraid I have priority on you, sweetie."

Jacen groaned and shook his head. "Look, can we just sit down and talk?"

"Sure."

Jacen sat in the pilot's seat, and Eriana stepped forward to straddle him.

"In our own chairs!"

"Fine." Eriana rolled her eyes and dropped into the co-pilot's chair, lazily putting one leg up on the control panel. "But why I have to be the man in this relationship is beyond me."

"Look, Danni and I are trying to work things out." Jacen turned to stare out at the swirls of hyperspace as he spoke. "I kinda screwed up a bit. I picked the Jedi Order over her and…it was both wrong and right at the same time."

"It was easy for me," Eriana said nonchalantly. "I didn't need you around. Sure, you were lots of fun, but Sam is mostly raised like any other Jensaarai that we recruit from a young age. I didn't need help."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you don't hold a grudge," Jacen said with a smile and turned to look back at her. Looking at her, he closed his eyes and groaned. "But would you please stop playing with yourself."

"Why," Eriana asked and leaned towards him, letting him see the inviting space between her breasts as her loose neckline hung down. "Do you want to play with me?"

"Eriana," Jacen said desperately, "things are a bit of a mess right now. I can't screw things up more with Danni. I'm sorry."

Eriana sat back and looked at him for a minute before smiling and shaking her head.

"Okay, kid, here's the scoop," Eriana said with uncharacteristic seriousness. "As I told you years ago, you're an idiot. Like any man out there, you think with your dick, and you don't think about the future. We both know that you're a moron for not jumping on that chick and fraking her brains out the minute you found out you knocked her up-"

"Not that it's any of your business," Jacen interrupted, "but while it may not have been the minute..."

"Fine, whatever," Eriana cut off. "My point is, you should give up your title as a Jedi Master to continue to be with her."

Jacen snorted in disgust and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Bit rich coming from you of all people," Jacen countered. "And besides, Danni and I have come to an arrangement even if we're still working things out. But anyway, do you think I forgot what you taught me about the Jensaarai way? About always acting in the best interests to uphold peace and justice? Our lessons weren't just about having sex every five minutes."

.

**Four years ago…**

Deep in the underground library of the Jensaarai facility, Jacen was reading over a book of philosophy while Eriana used her foot to distract him in a rather enticing manner. He had to use every bit of Jedi concentration to keep his mind on the words in the book and away from the way that she...

"So," Jacen said. "The Jensaarai Order believes that there is no dark side, or light side, but stands to uphold the principles of peace and justice in the best interests of society."

"You got it," Eriana said, granting him a look that defeated his every attempt to resist the effects of what she was doing with her foot.

"But… umm…" Jacen coughed and tried to regain his composure. While every stolen moment sneaking around with Eriana was proving to be some of the most fun he ever had in his life, he still had some learning to do. "Peace and justice are inherently what one could call light side ideologies. I can't recall any Sith Lords who wanted widespread justice or to pursue peaceful resolutions."

Eriana pulled her foot back from him, put it back in her boot and stood up. She walked around the table and leaned over Jacen, sure to press her breasts against his back as she reached around to point to a line in the text that she read aloud.

"'We shall seek to balance the light and dark as guided by the Saarai-Kaar,'" Eriana said as one of her hands slid down his body. "It's all about balance, Jacen."

Sounds of approaching footsteps made Eriana jump to his side and point back at the passage she had read a moment earlier.

"If you can't see that, you're about as stupid as anyone I've ever met, Apprentice Solo."

Jacen looked up at her, mildly amused by her ability to use a condescending tone, yet maintain an enticing look in her eyes that made him want to jump on top of her. Every time someone might wander by and discover that their lessons contained a wider range of extra-curricular activity than they were letting on, Eriana was able to make sure that the lessons were all that were happening.

As a group of four Jensaarai Apprentices came into view, Jacen went back to reading the book, even though he could not keep his mind off her, until the Apprentices passed. As he was trying to read, something caught his attention, and he reread it to be sure he read what he thought he had.

"You're Grey Jedi," Jacen said. "More to the light, but willing to use darkness when you need it."

"Finally," Eriana said in her most seductive voice. She leaned down and kissed him, catching his bottom lip between her teeth and gently pulling on it as she retreated. "Good boy."

Jacen smiled and resisted the urge to kiss her again. "But is using darkness to serve the light the right thing to do? That's like saying the ends justify the means." While he more than understood this himself already, he wanted to see what Eriana thought of the principles taught by her order.

"It's all about balance, Jacen."

.

**The present…**

For the first time he could remember, Eriana's face softened to an expression of melancholy as she turned and watched the view of hyperspace swirling past the cockpit windows. "Jacen, you're the only one who can come up with the answers you're looking for. Maybe you can make things work as a Jedi Master and a father. And I hope you do."

She turned back to look at him with uncharacteristic sincerity written all over her face. "But don't forget about Danni. I was truthful when I said I didn't need you around. But I wanted you there. Every girl wants the daddy of their child to be around. A great guy like you… if a girl tells you they don't want you there, they're lying."

Jacen snorted. "And if a girl says she doesn't want to have sex with a guy who presses it on her, that means she's lying?"

Again, Eriana rolled her eyes. "Maybe not in that circumstance. But it's all about balance, Jacen. We all have our dark sides and light sides, and every side you can think of, whether it's being a father or a Jedi, or a deadbeat jerk who won't have sex with me right now. You need to find the balance that you can live with."

Eriana stood up and made to retreat from the cockpit, but Jacen caught her by the wrist.

"What's your dark side? How do you balance it?"

"I have lots and lots of sex," Eriana said. "And I balance it with beating the crap out of criminals."

"Which one is the dark side?"

Eriana looked down at her waist, but Jacen couldn't tell if she was looking at her lightsaber or herself. She looked back up at him and her usual sultry smile returned.

"Wanna find out?"

"No," Jacen said with an uncomfortable smile, letting go of her. "That's okay."

Eriana laughed at his discomfort. "Tell me, Jacen, what's your dark side? For all your talk of balance, you seem to be one of the most upstanding Jedi ever, adhering to the light at every single turn. Even the Old Jedi Order would be envious if they knew about you, your trysts notwithstanding."

Jacen thought it over for a moment and shrugged. "I guess my dark side, for lack of a better term, has never been tested after the war."

Eriana shook her head flirtatiously. "Then I guess you'll have to deal with that yourself then, huh?" She then held out a hand to him.

"Come and play with Sam," she said. "She really wants to meet her daddy."

.

The two days in hyperspace to Presilla with Eriana were not as horribly embarrassing or sex-filled as Jacen had expected. After their heart-to-heart in the cockpit, Eriana had largely backed off her advances on him, choosing to respect her former lover's devotion to Danni, but he still caught her looking at him at odd times with enchanting expressions that would have shattered a lesser man's willpower.

Sam had proven to be a remarkable child, both beyond her years in being able to control the Force and as playful and energetic as any three year old that Jacen had ever met. To his surprise, while Sam recognized him as her father and made every effort to have fun with him, she no more connected to him than she did the _Solo Quest_.

"Don't worry about it," Eriana dismissed his fears as they walked through the corridors of Chartoss Incorporated, the premier mining company on Presilla, on their way to a meeting with the executives. Dressed in Jedi robes, they followed a smartly dressed young man past so many office doors that Jacen lost track counting after fifty. "Sam embraces the non-attachment thing as well as any Jensaarai ten times her age. Don't take her as an indication that you'll be a bad father for number two."

"I suppose," Jacen said, and the young man finally stopped and held a door open for them to enter.

Inside the room was a conference table surrounded by a dozen chairs, refreshments in the middle of the table, and four humans each dressed in their best business attire. Jacen could sense their apprehension about meeting the Jedi and Jensaarai representatives, and a second glance into their emotions brought a tiny smile to his face. It wasn't that they were apprehensive about meeting Jedi; it was that they didn't like the robes. The four humans stood up, and the oldest one - a balding, grey-haired man in a black suit - stepped forward with a hand offered toward Jacen.

"Master Jedi," the man said. "I am Winslow Chartoss, president of Chartoss Incorporated. Welcome to Presilla."

Jacen and Eriana both shook his hand in turn and introduced themselves with a bow.

"My colleagues, Liban Ata, Chief Financial Officer; Tamala Qus, Director of Exploration; and Sara Chartoss, my niece, and our Director of Operations."

Jacen and Eriana shook the hands of the two women and the man before taking a seat across from them at the large table. Jacen watched Eriana apprehensively, not entirely sure how adept the beautiful blonde warrior would be at negotiations. If she wielded words the same way she wielded a lightsaber, he suspected this would be a very short, very unfavorable meeting.

"The Jedi Order is willing to purchase cortosis ore at fifteen credits per kilo," Eriana said, surprising Jacen, but he was able to maintain a calm facade. They were authorized to pay up to seventeen credits per kilo. This didn't give them much room to negotiate. "In exchange, we expect to receive it in exclusivity."

"Our projections indicate that we could get upwards of thirty credits per kilo on the open exchange," Liban said. "Without an exclusivity arrangement."

"And how long would you be selling it at thirty before the price drops to five?" Eriana countered. "We're offering a guaranteed rate for your entire mine over the life of your operation. You won't get that guarantee at open market. Cortosis ore has very little use for anyone other than the Jedi."

"The Jedi, and those who wish to protect themselves from the Jedi," Winslow reminded her. "Cortosis ore is notoriously tricky to refine into a usable material. There is no way we can provide refined cortosis at that price in the volume you want."

"We just want the ore," Eriana said. "Give it to us raw. Refining takes away the value for us."

Winslow looked offended by Eriana's statement, and for good cause. Chartoss Incorporated's skill at refining was among the most advanced, and legendary, in the galaxy. It was a great source of pride for Winslow's company to be the only mining company capable of refining almost every base metal down to 99.99999% purity.

"I think," Jacen interrupted, knowing that Eriana was taking a very Jensaarai-centric stance on Cortosis, "my colleague has forgotten that we do see some value in obtaining a percentage of cortosis in the refined state. We are looking at receiving approximately fifteen to twenty percent by initial volume refined."

Eriana looked at him with a contemplative look, and, knowing how well she could hide her expressions, he knew he was probably going to be chewing on his own lightsaber after the meeting for his comment.

However angry she might be, Winslow relaxed a bit and glanced back at his team.

"We will run the numbers and see if they make sense to our goals in this endeavor," Winslow said, standing up. His entire team followed suit and quickly exited the conference room in a single file line. "I invite you to stay here and enjoy our hospitality. If you need anything, please ask Yastol, the young man who escorted you here."

Jacen and Eriana also stood and bowed to Winslow, but just as Winslow reached the door, Jacen quickly followed him out and closed the door behind him, leaving Eriana inside.

"President Chartoss," Jacen said, somewhat startling the older man. "Look, I'm not trying to push you here, but take it from me; she's not going to back down. You may end up with her camping out on your front lawn until you go for the deal."

Winslow regarded the sincere look on Jacen's face and nodded.

"If the numbers makes sense, Master Jedi," Winslow said solemnly and turned away.

Jacen winced and opened the conference room to face Eriana's piercing gaze.

"What was that about?"

"Just throwing my two credits in," Jacen said elusively. "Giving him a bit of insight into... how important it is that we get it."

.

**Four years ago…**

"Fifty-seven!" Eriana exclaimed as Jacen's ass hit the ground yet again. "Did you learn anything, you pathetic excuse for a Jedi Knight? How did you survive the war?"

Jacen groaned and looked around the expansive Jensaarai training facility. A crowd had gathered around them to watch Eriana repeatedly beat up her Jedi apprentice. He swore to himself when he realized that some of them were taking bets. He wondered if they were betting on him winning, or how many times he would lose before he gave up.

There was a very good reason they all said she was the best. Even though he drew from everything he had ever learned from his Jedi teachers and his time in the Yuuzhan Vong War and he fought without holding back one iota, nothing he could do seemed to get past her wickedly fast defense. He suspected that even Uncle Luke would be hard pressed in a battle against this beautiful blonde tyrant that picked his blade work apart with such ease that it was practically causing criminal damage to his self-worth. How could she be beating him like this? He was, at one point, a conduit for the Force who drew the war to its close, ensuring the survival of the galaxy at large, and yet, this woman, who had probably never set foot off of the world where she had been born and raised, who had never visited other worlds and Force sects like he had, was annihilating him as a combatant.

At the back of his mind, Jacen literally thanked the Force for prompting him to set off on a journey of self-exploration and philosophical pondering instead of improving his martial prowess; otherwise, he'd be crying in a corner like a baby at this point.

"Get up, baby Solo!" Eriana barked and took another slash at his chest with her lightsaber. Ignoring the comment that coincided with his thoughts, Jacen rolled out of the way easily and came to his feet, resuming the mildly awkward Jensaarai pose that involved having the pommel of his lightsaber in his right palm almost against his chest, and his left hand gripping below the emitter lightly as a pivot point.

With so many spectators, Eriana could not let her expression slip – she maintained a mask of pure durasteel on her face, locking him with a glare that cut through his defenses as easily as her lightsaber had.

"You know," Jacen said, feinting an attack, which she ignored, "you are one serious bitch of a teacher."

He chose that moment to attack, twisting his right hand upwards to slash at her arm, spun around and... felt his legs fall out from under him, sending him down to land painfully on his upper back. Again.

"Fifty-eight!" Eriana exclaimed in a tone of voice that was less excited and more vindictive, as if she was repaying him for some crime he had committed against her.

Finally ready to win at least once, Jacen kicked up to his feet and held his lightsaber in a single right-handed reverse grip, drawing on the Force with until he practically felt the energy snapping in the air around him. He took two steps towards her and swung at her, slipped behind her with a burst of Force-speed trick, and slammed the pommel of his lightsaber into her right kidney. As she staggered to her knees, he grabbed her in a rear naked choke, flipped his lightsaber over, and held it to her cheek.

"One!" Jacen exclaimed triumphantly. After all that beating that Eriana gave him, he couldn't help but feel a desperate bout of joy in achieving victory in such a petty activity; an activity with no higher stakes behind it than his self-esteem, apparently. It was almost like that soul-searching and wisdom-gaining that he strove for didn't matter anymore at this point.

Eriana grabbed his lightsaber just below the emitter and snapped it off with Force-enhanced strength and speed. Somehow he knew she had spun out of his choke, but could not quite figure out how he ended up on his back with her knee pressed against his neck and her lightsaber against his temple.

"Do you really think I give up that easily, Solo?"

"So does that mean my one goes to you for a fifty-nine?"

Eriana nodded with a triumphant yet sultry smirk.

.

**The present…**

To Jacen's surprise, Chartoss Industries was quite happy with the numbers they had come up with, and were more than happy to sign the deal with the Jedi Order. Despite the fact that they were probably paying more for the ore than they should be, Jacen was quite happy that Eriana didn't have to go after them with her usual level of persistence.

Eriana grabbed a chunk of rock from the crate in the cargo hold of the _Solo Quest_ and examined the sparkling cortosis within. Apparently satisfied, she tossed the chunk to Jacen and smiled.

"That's how you do it, Solo," Eriana said. "Go in hard, and get the job done."

"I'm surprised they went for it after you insulted them like that," Jacen admitted. "Good thing I was there."

"You're still a bloody fool," Eriana scoffed. "What the hell is the Jedi Order going to do with refined cortosis? That stuff's almost useless when making armor. Don't you remember what I taught you about Cortosis?"

.

**Four years ago...**

While trying to adjust his position, Jacen lost track of how much room he had and fell right off with a slight yelp of surprise, crashing to the floor below. Eriana's grinning face appeared on the edge of the bed, looking down at his naked body with that familiar-yet-incredibly-seductive expression that still drove him wild despite three weeks of intense sex with her.

"What'cha doin' down there?" Eriana asked, wobbling a bit from side to side as she waggled her butt playfully. "The hot naked girl is up here."

"Umm..." Jacen said, trying to buy time to think up something smart. "Just thought it might be interesting to try it down here."

"Mmm, that's new," Eriana said and hopped on top of him. After a few minutes of trying out their new spot, Eriana sat up on top of him and looked down at him, her long blonde hair partially covering her breasts.

"Do you love me?" Eriana asked.

Jacen stared at her for a full ten seconds running her words over in his mind as if to confirm that he did hear what he thought he had.

"Well," Jacen said, looking away from her eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts. When he realized he was merely blankly staring at her breasts, he looked back up at her. "I don't know if I've known you long enough to. I mean, I like you, and I do care a lot about you..."

"Yeah, me neither," Eriana dismissed his rambling and went back to what she was doing to him.

When they finally took a break and went back to cuddling, Eriana lying with her head on Jacen's chest and her hand gently stroking him, she decided to start talking again.

"Jacen, there's something I can't really teach you, but I think you'd love to learn it."

"What is it?" Jacen asked.

"How we make our armor," Eriana said sadly. "We're really low on cortosis ore. They won't let me offer you any to teach you with until we find another supply. Most of our apprentices are being rationed in making their armor as it is."

She shifted her head to look at him with her beautiful eyes. "But I can tell you a bit about it."

"Oh?"

"When we make our armor, we start with a base." She ran her fingers up his abs and chest, as if to simulate where it would be. "Usually something lightweight, like a carbon fiber weave."

She ran her hand, palm flat, down his chest again.

"Then we plate it with a flexible durasteel-polymer compound that is mixed with the raw cortosis to provide resistance to..."

She grabbed hold of him and smiled.

"Lightsabers."

Jacen smiled back at her and leaned forward to kiss her, which she happily returned before she continued.

"As we mix the polymer with the raw cortosis, we use the Force to control the mixture and the distribution over the carbon fiber, and by putting our very essences in to control it..."

At this point, Jacen's eyes were practically rolling back into his head with ecstasy.

"It becomes a part of us in a way that refined cortosis can never be."

.

**The present…**

"We'll use it for lining doors or windows," Jacen said, putting the rock back into the crate. "Stuff not as intricate or intimate as the armor."

Eriana smiled at the memory and pulled Jacen into a hug.

"It's been so great to see you again, Jacen," she said. "I'm happy that Sam got to meet her dad, and that you're finally becoming the Jedi Master I always knew you would become. You and Danni are going to be great parents. Just remember: balance."

"I always do," Jacen replied with a grin.

She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"But, if you ever get kicked out of the Order and things go badly with her..."

Jacen laughed and shook his head at her, earning one of her dazzling smiles in return. She finally stepped away from him and crossed the cargo bay to pick up a duffel bag that Jacen hadn't noticed was there when they came in.

"You're not coming back with us?"

"Nah," Eriana said, slinging the strap of the bag over her shoulder. "Someone needs to make sure these guys live up to the quality they promise. I'll be here a few months to oversee the operation, and then I'll get a transport back to Sorbaan if everything's up to snuff. Besides, it'll do Sam some good to get away from the Jensaarai and spread her wings for a bit."

Jacen followed Eriana to the boarding ramp where Garis and Sam were already waiting, Sam holding two of Garis's fingers as if she owned him. And from the look of her rather snooty expression, Jacen thought she may actually think that.

Garis, meanwhile, had a blank expression as he always did; he barely seemed to register Sam's presence, and he simply looked to where Jacen stood.

And that was when Jacen realized that it may be a lot harder for him to help Garis back to sanity; that stance, that upright posture, was all to indicative of a potential psychopath. Before, Jacen simply thought that it was that of a loyal, obedient Jedi apprentice who wanted to impress his Master, and while that was true to an extent, Jacen realized that there was much more than that.

He reached out for his apprentice's Force-presence while making himself small, as Vergere had taught him all those years ago. Yes, there was an unstable mind there, as he had confirmed with his assessment over how Garis had attacked Lumiya. But aside from that, he couldn't get much more on the apprentice's thoughts or feelings; Jacen had as hard a time trying to discern Garis's thoughts on Sam through the Force as he did in reading his body language.

If Garis ever hurt Sam, then frak all that Uncle Luke said about giving him another chance, this bastard would...

Jacen let the rest of that thought trail off as he also then realized that that was what his dark side was; he could let his own attachments get to him.

Just as the Old Jedi Order had put a ban on in their time.

"Time to go, Sam," Eriana said to her daughter, inadvertently breaking Jacen out of his dark reverie. "Say goodbye to everyone."

The little girl looked up to Garis and let go of his fingers as if he no longer mattered to her. "Goodbye." Garis only offered that same blank expression to her retreating form.

By the Force, it scared Jacen.

Sam walked up to Jacen and stuck her hand out, which Jacen shook in turn. "Goodbye, Daddy."

Before Jacen could say anything, Sam spun on her heel and marched off toward the office building. Jacen laughed, an image going through his mind of three-year old Sam telling President Chartoss exactly how to run his company. Garis walked up to Jacen and turned to see where Sam had gone to.

"Cute kid," was all Garis said in his consistent monotone.

"Start the preflight," Jacen ordered, elusively trying to tell him to get lost. "I'll be right there."

Without a word, Garis entered the ship, but did glance back one last time to see Eriana and Jacen staring at each other. Jacen waited until he knew Garis could no longer see or hear them before he spoke.

"Do you love me?"

Eriana chuckled and shook her head. "Well, I do care a lot about you."

"Yeah, me neither."

With one last shared laugh and smile, which made Jacen almost completely forget about his fears over Garis, the Jedi and Jensaarai both turned toward their respective destinations as one and parted company for what they both hoped would not be the last time.

.

Special thanks to Onimiman for letting me play in his sand box and explore a recreation of Eriana (one of my OCs) that wouldn't fit into my own storyline. I had a lot of fun writing a very different Eriana, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. - JediCarpet


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